


Burp World Problems

by Harvinder



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - College/University, Baby Animals, Belching, Buddhism, Burping, College, Coming of Age, Fluff, Fraternities & Sororities, Gas - Freeform, Gay, Humor, M/M, Narm, Startup Culture, Tech Industry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 10:41:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 34,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27849554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harvinder/pseuds/Harvinder
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that he who cannot burp is regarded as a pansy beta by everyone.In a world where belching is the ultimate sign of masculinity, Hayden is quite the oddity: he cannot burp. He's only let out pitiful squeaks and gurgles - while "real men" are blasting out eardrums. Oh yeah, Hayden's also in a frat. So naturally he enlists his fraternity brothers for burping lessons.Will Hayden realize his true potential? Will he finally be able to feel fully comfortable in his own skin? Will he able to make a name for himself? Or will he be relegated to a life of total mediocrity?
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- This story is set in a fraternity; there will be "un-PC" statements etc.  
> \- In this universe, a certain app rhyming with "Goober" has not been invented.

Two burly Kappa Alpha guys greeted each other in the way that guys loved to do: with a complicated series of wrist gestures, a fist bump, and dueling belches.

The taller guy had released the more impressive one: Two girls who were sitting under a palm nearby instantly perked up and started whispering about him: no doubt about the burping prowess - the timbre, the length, … what girls care about and what guys seek to accentuate in their interminable flexing, in any case.

I sighed and stepped out of the way, moving toward the lecture hall for my 10 AM business course at a quicker pace. Hearing their inane bro conversation was tiring enough without being reminded that I myself could not burp.

Yes, yours truly, Delta Upsilon dudebro Hayden Wickham was incapable of burping. While my peers were letting out gigantic blasts, catching the attention of girls left and right for their impeccable modulation and timbre - I was letting various utterly embarrassing hiccups and squeaks.

Unfortunately, it is a truth universally acknowledged that he who cannot burp is regarded as a pansy beta by everyone.

I should just shut up and start designing my costume for the pride parade now - not that I have anything against gays. Some of the hands-down best burpers I have ever witnessed - ever - have turned out to be proud flag-wavers.

I guess I just don’t have the genes for it.

Yes, I know that my brothers and father are all pretty high up there when it comes to the audible art, and they’ve let me know through typical dominance-asserting rough-housery. You should, however, know that such things as recessive genes exist.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t have to own up to the fact that I’m a mutant.

Life is tough at the bottom of the burp chain. But fortunately I’m good looking - according to my mother, whose opinion I esteem highly. I also am pretty smart: I do attend one of the best universities in the United States and the alma mater of 42 billionaires (and that guy who lost a billion dollars in the bubble and now paints caricatures of tourists on the embarcadero for a living).

I hate tooting my own horn, but guys like me - no-burp nunces - need to have something to brag about. It’s American male conversation culture: if we’re not talking about sports, we are bragging about something or burp-talking.

I catch a glimpse of Summer, a girl who I’ve lately seen around everywhere after Nate pointed her out at a party. She has miles of long, dark brown hair and dark eyes set in a pixie-like face. I guess you could say that I’m into her. So far I’ve been content with admiring her from afar. She probably, like the rest of her gender, is hung up on guys being able to lay them out long, loud, and proud.

So therefore, I assume that she’d never be into me. But that usually isn’t an obstacle for us fraternity guys… I kid, I kid. I’m proud of my letters, and I strive to uphold the core values of Delta Upsilon: brotherhood, integrity, generosity, diligence, imagination, competence, kindness, and service.

Long introductory monologue aside, I rushed through the airy courtyard halls framed with Spanish-style columns: toward the space where my 10 AM lecture was to take place.

I would usually be singing or humming something as a remedy against low spirits but I was in a hurry today: we were giving presentations on our term projects, which involved coming up with a business idea and then developing it.

After too many bad experiences with cab drivers who ‘forgot’ to turn on their meters, I had come up with an idea for an app that could match people who wanted to get rides with drivers would would accept them. It was just something little, but hey, it would get me a grade.

I entered the lecture hall and see the usual group of people and sit down in my usual seat. The president of our fraternity - Chad Chandler - looked up and gave me a friendly nod. I didn’t know why Chad was so nice to a beta guy who can’t burp when he was one of the most alpha burpers ever - the first time we had ever met, he let out a huge ten-second winner while never breaking eye contact with me. He had established primacy over me, a simp who could only squeak in reply to a lion’s roar. This episode was to not cause surprise, as he was renowned throughout campus as a world class belcher - depth and length were his speciality.

And to add insult to injury, he wasn’t one of those brainless Neanderthals from Kappa Alpha whose conversations were scarcely more enlightening than the gaseous emissions bandied about in their never ending flexfests. He was intelligent - he had created some sort of nutrition app and sold it to Facebook for a cool ten million dollars. But Chad was magnanimous - he had always given me helpful advice and made me feel at home since day one. All this alone should have warranted admiration from the average female, but he was classically handsome. I know what you’re thinking - I should just kill myself now when guys like this exist.

Professor Filoli sashayed into the room in his usual stately manner. He was reportedly extremely wealthy from his time as a venture capitalist. The class immediately settled down.

“Today marks the culmination of several months’ focused effort. I eagerly await to hear what the brighest young minds in California, if not in the world, have generated. Several of my former students have developed their project ideas into multi-billion dollar businesses,” said Filoli. He then proceeded to read off a few logistical remarks in a solemn voice. “With all that said, let us commence. Bianca Andreeson, enlighten us with your great sense… the world has long awaited the advent of blankets with sleeves that can release app-customizable scents on-demand.”

Indeed, the brighest minds of California, if not the world were bursting with world-changing ideas: an app that costed $10001 that existed for the sole purpose to show that you could afford to throw away $10001 on an app, a mood ring that pulsed with your heartbeat, and a vibrating “backscratcher” that periodically released self-aggrandizing affirmations were the topics of the next three presentations.

If this was the output of the brighest minds in the most advanced country in the world - U.S.A! U.S.A!, the world was utterly hopeless.

The guys would occasionally by letting out short and deep closed mouth burps here and there - nothing too impressive - typical dominance-maintaining antics. Filoli rolled his eyes in an a “guys will be guys - they can’t resist showing off” manner.

When it came to my presentation, I spoke quickly and ignored the disdainful looks of the Kappas. Chad flashed a broad smile and a thumbs up. I explained the primary rationale and features of the app and then gave a quantitative analysis of the state of the market.

Soon, my presentation was over and we continued with the next presentation: balls of colorful chalk you could put in your bathtub to turn it into something like a kid science fair volcano on acid. Now, this was getting silly - what kind of person in 21st century America took baths?

The presentations were quite entertaining in a way: some of them gave me new ways of looking at things. Chad walked over and we did a typical complex guy handshake - no burping though: his superiority was beyond debate. “That was really neat. I actually felt like people could use such a thing: dude, tell me you plan on taking it further.”

“I don’t know, man. Don’t think I have the time or energy next semester, with the new course load… Maybe I could patent the idea and then sue the living daylights out of whatever big tech firm that actually implements it.” I said the last part half sarcastically - I wasn’t the “my daddy’s a lawyer” type, even though my dad was actually a lawyer.

Running a business sure sounded like it took a lot, and I don’t think that I was the type of person who could do big things. I knew I had the genes for operating businesses - judging by my black belt in spreadsheet wizardry - but not genes for creating them out of scratch.

“Hmm... Don’t think you can patent that. Maybe you’ll change your mind about going further.”

We chatted for a bit about fraternity business, including our upcoming trip up to the city for a baseball game, before Chad had to dash off another class. “See you at the house, Wickham. Good job today, and hold on to that idea.”

Why was Chad taking such an interest in this dumb project? It’s nothing, and I’m nothing.

My greatest goal in life is to earn enough through a combination of wage-slavery and investing so that I can retire to a beach town in Mexico with a low cost of living; I thought the ‘next big thing’ was for those with divine inner voices i.e. not me.

Deeper down, I really did not savor the idea of putting myself out there: blood, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids expended only to flop on my face. The thought was almost too painful to entertain.

Painful memories from grade 2 rose up unbidden. Our task was to create a presentation on our favourite public figure: mine was Liza Minnelli. I had spent hours designing the poster, spending a lot of time getting the sparkles and glitter just right. I had done a lot of research as well as prepared a coherent narrative and script. I had printed out little booklets with fun facts about Liza and a QR code that lead to a free movie of hers which I paid for with my allowance.

At the end of the presentation I had bowed deeply just like on Broadway, everyone burst into laughter including the teacher. Then the prettiest girl in the class called me stupid. I was humiliated. The teacher then told my father, who made fun of me along with my brothers.

I clenched my teeth and suppressed the memories.

I was about to head out of the classroom to grab a $8 panini at the local Starbucks for lunch, when … “Wickham - Hayden Wickham.”

Drat. I started as Professor Filoli called my name. Had I unknowingly copied someone else’s idea? I was well-known by my family as an avid inventor of things that already existed. I returned to the podium and politely asked what was the matter.

“In a sea of scented blankets and fart apps, your transportation idea really stood out as something that could really have a market. Have you given any thought taking the project beyond my course? If so, I have a contact at my former firm who would jump on such an idea.”

“No, sir, I don’t think I’ll be going further. I think it’d be a great idea for someone else - but I don’t think I’ll have the time or energy next semester. Besides, I’m not that type of person - I don’t believe I have what it takes.”

“That’s nonsense, Hayden. From day one, your style of thinking has caught my attention. It’s different from most people - sharply incisive yet still able to entertain ideas that others would prematurely call impossible. ___ … ___ I always saw you as the type of person who has the power to change things, the power to think different. And you didn’t let me down with this project: this is a veritable billion dollar idea,”

I blushed at the praise: I had never seen myself in such a light.

“Nah, I don’t think so. I always thought that I would get a job at a management consulting firm. Optimize and iterate - that’s my credo. Not disrupt and innovate.”

“Nonsense! I would hate to see such talents as yours wasted slaving away in order to line the pockets of those who already have everything. I expect you to have a further prototype to show my contact Karin within a few weeks. She would require a much more detailed business plan and a prototype app.”

“But sir, I don’t know how to code.” I said, playing along. I didn’t think I was able to launch a real business, and I couldn’t stomach being humiliated in front of a board of rich venture capitalists. “

“I would recommend you to bring on a nerd from the engineering department… but the top tech investors generally require the founders to have some sort of coding background. And you would generally have to cede a large portion of your rights to the nerd. You must code it yourself if you wish to get anywhere in the Valley.”

Oh yes, coding. Another talent which I didn’t have the genes for. The assignments the computer science nerds work on all day might as well be hieroglyphics to me. Never mind that I have never actually tried coding before: I just knew that I couldn’t and that I’d be better served doing something else.

“Uh, I’ll consider it, sir. But I don’t view myself as the coding type.”

“Absolute nonsense! Anyone can learn to code! My 16 year old daughter is an avid coder, but I wish she would use her talents more wisely: she has created a website where teenage girls can gossip about the relative belching prowess of various boy band members.  
Anyway, my point is - you can learn to code. There’s no such thing as the coding type. And more generally - you need to stop putting boxes around yourself, telling yourself what you can and can’t do. I know that you are capable of going far: you must first recognize this and then throw yourself into the process.”

I felt uncomfortable after this speech, but something turned on at the back of my brain. “What if someone steals my ideas? Or what if I’ve come up with something someone has already come up with?”

“Well, I’m an insider at the top firms, and I have never heard of such an idea of matching riders with drivers. It’s truly one of those ideas that’s so simple it’s hidden in plain sight, not to demean your genius, of course. And yes, if you don’t start developing now, someone will hear and start developing the idea and then raking in the profits that should be yours.”

“But sir, I - “ I sputtered. The professor shrugged, turned, and walked out. “Goodbye Mr. Wickham - I must be off to meet a dean. Meditate on my words, won’t you?”

I left and then went to Starbucks, my mind abuzz. Filoli had made a point, but I felt too uncomfortable and wired to think more deeply on it. I purchased my avocado panini - $8, not including sales tax, and a caramel macchiato.

I chewed pensively on my avocado toast, savoring the the luscious, buttery flavor of the avocado. The birds were chirping, guys were having belching contest on the quad, and the sun was shining - everything going as usual.  
I found myself falling into a reverie, which abruptly ended when I nearly chipped a tooth on a sliver of avocado pit.


	2. Chapter 2

On my way back to the house, I saw a little girl crying at the base of a tree.

She was wearing denim overalls and had her hair in pigtails. The students were walking past her, quite a few giving her sympathetic looks but not stopping to ask what was the matter. I guess they thought that someone else would help her. I was tempted to go with the flow and continue on my way, but as I drew nearer I hesitated.

It didn’t look like anyone would stop anytime soon, so I went up and introduced myself. She turned out to be the daughter of some professor - she wasn’t lost. She pointed upwards: her kitten had scampered up a tree and wouldn’t come down, no matter how much she coaxed it. 

“It looks like Crookshanks climbed up to enjoy the view,” I said, motioning toward the quad which had luscious green grass, supplied with enough water for a third world country in drought. A ways off, a group of guys were having a burping contest, flexing in front a giggling gaggle of picnicking blondes. “But I think we’d both agree that it’s time for him to come down,”

I looked up at the cat lounging around in the fronds. It was a bit high, but I was confident: I had decent upper body strength and felt as though I could shimmy my way up there and ferry Crookshanks back to Eliza without losing more than one limb.

I started climbing like a Samoan up the Spanish palm. I made quick time and soon scooped the miscreant cat into my arms. The very small kitten with greyish-blue fur leapt into my arms and clung to my chest with its paws. 

The little girl - Eliza - was ecstatic. As I was coming down, I misjudged a step. I instinctively tightened my grip around Crookshanks, taking care not to suffocate him, as I stumbled and landed on my bottom. 

“Scheisse! ugh, my coccyx!” - I hoped Eliza didn’t understand German. Fortunately Crookshanks was OK - I had instinctively used my body to protect him. I looked around, afraid that someone had noticed my fall. 

The little girl thanked me profusely as I transferred Crookshanks to Eliza with some difficulty: the kitten did not seem to want to leave my arms. I smiled - doing something nice for others always gave me this warm feeling, even if no one was around to see.

The little girl then took out her iPhone and had me pose with her and the kitten in a selfie: “This will get so many Insta likes!” Despite me being from another generation and thus a bit weirded out by a girl who couldn’t be older than 10 on Instagram, I stayed and gratified her wishes by taking a series of selfies. She then skipped off, humming.

I started walking back to the house, thinking on what Chad and the professor had said. It was true that there was a lot of potential in the idea. I also realized that if I didn’t start work soon, someone would come up with a similar idea. Having a lot of money would be nice, but money can’t buy happiness. Other thoughts soon took precedence, and I thought it more comfortable to ponder other subjects… like what I’d get for dinner tonight.

I then realized that I had left my food next to the kitten tree and dashed back to get it. I scarfed down the remainder of my sandwich, which had been combed for other nasties, and chugged my caramel macchiato… and then let out a watery gurgle. Yes, I still couldn’t burp. I halfheartedly tried to force something out but nothing came except another pitiful gurgle.

Bradley Stevenson of Kappa Alpha came whizzing by on a hoverboard, almost knocking me down. He let out a gigantic blast in my direction while his finger and thumb were in the shape of an L on his forehead. He rode off, laughing. My face felt hot. I couldn’t help feeling ridiculous. 

I went back to the house. Everything was as it is… a few guys were playing Call of Duty on the ground floor while talking, laughing, and burping away… another group were playing a game where one guy was juggling bean bags and the others tried to distract him by burping at him.

The gentlemen of Delta Upsilon were basically doing everything except studying and homework. I went into my room and started bustling away at some task. Soon, I got dinner and endured the typical post dinner chat where potent belches flew like volleys in a medieval war. I was the eternal spectator at such assemblies.

Nate let out a particularly loud and gassy one right next to my ear. “Pardon me: that was the souffle talking.” he said in a nonchalant tone, smirking and looking around the room with a “try me” look. 

Oliver rejoindered with another, more brazen display of masculine virility. I had to hand it to Oliver: he had great form. The belch was loud, long, and had just the right amount of wet undertone. 

I wondered how ridiculous judging over qualities of burps would be in a parallel universe in which burping was not the primary form of masculine display: the mating call. 

“The beast has finally deigned to acknowledge you, Nathaniel,” says Oliver, grinning. As Oliver was hi-fiving guys around the room, Nate’s larynx was already bobbing up and down: he was recharging for a reply…. 

A mezzo-forte belch with watery tones emitted from his lips. The guys burst into laughter that subsided when a deep earthquake-like rumble started emitting from the entrance. It was Chad: his gassy explosion soon crescendoed into a beastly full-throated roar. I could swear I felt my hair move, yada yada. 

— “There it is! Hello boys, don’t forget about the game tomorrow,” Chad said without skipping a beat. He then launched into a few logistical details - “be at the station before 9” etc. Nate, Oliver, and the other guys were silent for a brief moment before bursting into chatter: they were thoroughly out-alpha’d by the president and they knew it.

Hopefully Saturday would give me distraction from myself - the guys were headed up to the city to watch the baseball finals: the Giants were going up against the hated Jayhawks. I went to bed, feeling very meh. Thoughts about my burping weakness and my lack of initiative regarding the ridesharing project swirled around my dreaming brain. But thoughts about doing something to change myself - of taking a risk and putting myself out there - were more painful than ruminations on my inferiority. 

It turned out to be a perfect day weather-wise; it was a bit foggy and nippy in the morning but it burned off before 10. The ride into the city was uneventful. The baseball field was extremely crowded with fans of all stripes. Many dudes were wearing hats that had beer cans strapped to them: was this a new fad? 

The guys loaded up on grub: gigantic baskets of nacho fries, crab cakes, popcorn shrimp, and huge steins of beer. “Get ready, guys, to hear the power of the gurgle,” I thought. I sat back, determined to enjoy the game. 

The players were clowning around, having a belching contest on the diamond as guys usually did. Soon, the starting bell rang and everyone stood for the national anthem before the game officially commenced. At least it wasn’t a burped rendition as is customary at intramural games - Mariah Carey was the singer today. 

This was one of the high spots of the day for me: I’ve been told I have a range almost as wide as her’s and since then she has been one of my favorites.

I ate, but not too quickly as I was afraid of getting stomach pains. The other guys were really making headway: stadium food disappeared into bottomless black holes, washed down with waves of beer. A chorus of belches of various textures rang out about me, each and every one of them better than anything that I had ever produced.

Intermission was soon here - the Giants were up 3 points, fortunately. Chad and I went to fill up on more greasy food when we happened to chance upon Bradley Stevenson, the Kappa. He was wearing a tight blue t-shirt that complemented the color of his eyes and a cap that emphasized his square jaw. He would look right at home standing on autumn porch in an Abercrombie photo shoot.

He greeted us with a derisive belch. It turned out he had been sitting a few rows away with a few other Kappas. Chad and I returned his salutation with cold nods. 

Bradley and I spent what seemed like a long time glaring angrily into each other’s eyes. 

He started when Chad cleared his throat. “Wickham - it doesn’t particularly surprise me to see that even with so much chow before you, you are still incapable of letting out the tiniest squeak. It’s good to see that Delta is so tolerant of alternative sexual persuasions - it’s the new zeitgeist, you know,” he said in a mocking tone. 

I instantly grew red - Not that I had anything against gays, but to have my sexuality questioned like this in public touched something deeper down.

Chad started in a paternalistic way. I stepped forward instead. “Shut up, Stevenson. Don’t talk about stuff you don’t know - in other words, just don’t talk at all.” I retorted angrily. 

“In addition, I too can burp. I just -“ I looked over at Chad to see what he was thinking. I sounded like a little kid arguing on the playground. 

“Can’t. Because you’re a particularly beta beta and a genetic freak, who will always be bossed around and cucked by alphas,” said Bradley.

I wanted to say something clever, but nothing was forthcoming. 

“Don’t get angry because I can read you better than you can read yourself: you’re an open book to me. There’s nothing to be ashamed about: both in your sexuality and your nonexistent burping ability. You need to accept the things you can’t change.” 

“I’m not - “ I sputtered. Chad started: “Stevenson - I didn’t think you were this clueless. we’re at the game. You’re blabbing about this abstract nonsense and making basel- , erm base allegations about my buddy Hayden here when everyone’s talking about baseball and beer.” 

To me - “It’s time for us to ditch this chump. The game’s going to start back up in a few.” 

Bradley grinned derisively, showing off perfect teeth. “Toodles. Have an absolutely fabulous day, my queens!” That guy was a strange one, but girls sure liked him enough: he wasn’t half bad looking, and he wasn’t shy about letting loose.

I still wanted to say something when Nate and a few other brothers came up from behind us. “What was Stevenson going about Wickham being gay?” Nate asked. 

“I - “ I sputtered. “Stevenson was just being a dick, as usual. Nothing outside the norm for a Kappa,” said Chad in an authoritative tone. 

I was about to say something when Logan cut in. “Hayden - we have had gay brothers in the past. They have been and still are invaluable and have only made the letters proud. I literally don’t see why it’d be a problem. we’re not homophobic like Kappa Alpha: we live in the 21st century,” said Logan in his impeccable received pronunciation accent. The other brothers expressed their assent.

“Guys — I’m not gay!” I finally managed to get out. “Bradley Stevenson was just messing with me, being a dick as usual.” They didn’t look all that convinced. I grabbed the nearest pitcher of beer and chugged 75% of it as fast as I could. My chest heaved as I tried to let loose but nothing was forthcoming. I kept blindly trying to force something, anything out. Finally a single hiccup came out - pathetic. 

The guys looked at me as they would a limping kitten.

“You should know that it’s OK with us. We don’t care if you have different preferences,” said Logan in a friendly tone. The other guys gave some friendly and empty words about how ‘tolerant’ they were. I sighed. 

The rest of the game went past as smoothly as the beer down the guys’ throats - the Giants beat the Jayhawks 19 to 3. Chad decided to sit next to me on the ride home. “Hayden - it bears repeating that you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to being yourself in front of the guys. If anyone has a problem with you, they can talk to me first,” Chad proclaimed.

“Thanks, Chad. That’s good to know,” I said, perhaps a bit sarcastically. “But I’m not gay.” 

Chad looked at me for a moment with raised eyebrows. I grew a bit angry - he still didn’t believe me. Why was burping so bound up with masculinity in this society? Why do girls constantly obsess over a guy’s burping skill? Why did burping become the purest expression of masculinity - why couldn’t something else - such as singing ability - be the male ‘mating call’, not burping out of all things… Sometimes I entertained weird thoughts such as this - you must forgive me for digressing.

When he saw how set my expression was, all he said was “I believe you.” I acknowledged his response and then passively watched the scenery rushing by - radioactive swamps and nondescript office buildings housing DNA processing companies. 

I wondered if I paid $10 to Google for the privilege of storing my DNA in their databases, I could learn why I was hopeless on the burping front.

“Any girls you’ve got your eye on? I know how it is with you and the burping situation - I want to help in any way I can.” 

“Well, there’s a sophomore who I’ve been seeing around everywhere. Her name’s Summer. She’s got luscious hair that seems to go on for miles and the most interesting expression in her dark eyes…” I then went into detail on more of her womanly dimensions as fraternity dudes must do as a matter of course; I decided to leave out some of the more crass speech to maintain my propriety.

“Summer - Summer Hoffman? She’s mega cute, but a bit too short for my taste.” I kept enquiring about her. It turned out that Chad had a little fling with her and that they were still on amicable terms. She became more and more attractive as Chad told me more about her. I almost felt as though we were soul mates - yes, guys can have cheesy thoughts about soul mates. Some of us are huge romantics - shh!

“I could set you two up, but you must be aware that she likes guys who can belt them out.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chad continued talking about Summer. “I’ll text her about you, set up a date - I know that you’re her type. At the very worst, it’d be a nice dinner out of the house - I have some places near campus that I could recommend. In any case, my advice is to not get caught up with any one girl - there are plenty of fish in the sea.” 

Humph! Easy for you to say, Mr. Golden Boy, who belches like an absolute beast and has a trust fund. Nonetheless, actually getting to know her was a start. Maybe I could charm her with my superior taste in music and literature. Anything except burping. “That’d be great: I’m free every night next week except Wednesday and Thursday.”

Chad looked up for a bit after furiously texting: his fingers flew so quickly over his phone that it turned into a pink blur.

“It’s done. Sushi on Wednesday night - I’ll send you her number and the address.” 

For the rest of the journey back to campus, we talked a bit about my app idea. I explained the facts: that it’d better be someone else besides me, that I didn’t have time, that I didn’t have experience, that I couldn’t code, and various other reasons that I had thought of. He kept trying to convince me of the massive opportunity involved - that someone’s going to come up with the idea soon, yada yada. I don’t know why he brought up the idea so often - I had already stated my reasons why I was against it.

The rest of the weekend passed rather uneventfully. I attended a rave the night of the baseball game and woke up hung over at noon. Before I knew it, I found myself at the restaurant with Summer. It was an Asian fusion place that served tex mex sushi ‘creations’. We made the usual small talk, about courses and weather (California does not have “weather” as other places do - but we have the same awkwardness). Soon, my order of chipotle rib eye sashimi was delivered and I dug in. 

Beyond the initial awkward small talk period, conversing with Summer was a breeze. It was like talking to a guy, only without the posturing. But she wasn’t like one of those stereotypical tomboy girls - ones who always felt the need repeatedly declare “I’m one of the guys” by being obnoxious slobs. Such attention antics were barely tolerated by most discerning guys.

“Hayden, before I forget - that was a really heroic thing you did for my sister. She just wouldn’t stop talking about you. Her friends were all over the Instagram photos she posted - she got tons of likes, but she kept telling me how you comforted her and handled Crookshanks.” 

“Hold on - Eliza is your sister? Huh, small world, isn’t it.” I then proceeded to start discussion about the six degrees of Kevin Bacon and then segued into network effects in economics: I may look like a typical frat bro, but I did had elements of nerd in me that I cherished and cultivated. Fortunately, Summer was apparently the type of girl to respond to such geekery. By that, I meant that she didn’t walk away immediately.

Some more small talk, deeper now. “And it was nothing - call me again if Crookshanks gets any grandiose ideas.” The rest of the evening passed with similar ‘quirky’ conversation expected from two college students who fancy their views much more insightful than they actually are.

We decided to go back to Summer’s place - I don’t think that the Delta house would be conducive for anything except … the things that go on in frat houses. It was a warm fall night and amazingly a few stars were visible. Then some of them moved slightly: airplanes. Oh well, I’ll just tell myself that they’re stars.

Her room was spacious and done up in tasteful pastel colors. Mason jars and snapshots were strewn all over the place, but her room didn’t give me any impression of being messy as a typical guy’s room was. It turned out she loved Settlers of Catan as much as I did, so we played that for a while. 

Then I moved closer to her on her sofa. The light in the room seemed to grow softer and softer. I could swear I heard smooth jazz muzak. It felt like we were in a kissing scene from a straight-to-disc romance movie. I leaned towards her face with my eyes closed, when: 

She started. “Hayden, are you thirsty? Do you want some seltzer? Or some beer? I have some leftover IPAs.” 

My stomach dropped like an elevator with its cables cut. Drat. Most guys would have already burped - on command - by now. It was human nature. She was expecting me to “perform” for her. 

After discovering how much synergy we had, coming back to the reality that I can’t burp was way jarring. “Uh, sure, I’ll have a seltzer,” I said, trying to keep my cool.

I drank the sparkling water slowly. She was looking at me expectantly. I put the drink down and picked up game pieces again. She made no motion. After a while, she said, “make yourself comfortable Hayden. I’ve heard that you have some scruples about letting loose, but I want you to know that you can trust me not to judge… too harshly.”

Soon, her watching me drink seltzer slowly with that look simply grew too much for me to bear, and I blurted out “I can’t burp.”

“Oh, you must be under the weather! I’ll get you some zinc, maybe that’ll make you feel better.” 

“Summer - I can’t burp. I just can’t let out anything beyond a pitiful gurgle or a stray hiccup.”

“But you’re a great singer. I’ve heard you at events and around campus. Your voice is amazing.” 

“I’m convinced burping uses a different set of muscles. All that I know is that I can’t. Guess I really lost the genetic lottery, huh? But believe me when I say that I can’t burp.” 

She looked at me with a strange look: it was largely unreadable but had elements of pity and disappointment. “Genes - that’s the first I’ve ever heard that excuse. Have you ever tried learning how to?” 

“I spent an hour browsing how-to guides - I bellyflopped majorly, so I assumed that I couldn’t.” 

“Just because you tried and failed once doesn’t mean you’re ‘genetically’ hopeless. I don’t much like that sort of mindset.” There was a look of disappointment in those dark hazel eyes.

I was silent. “I agree - and I apologize for misleading you in any way.” She smiled weakly. “It’s OK. You didn’t lie to me in any way. We can at least still be friends - I’ve felt like I’ve met my long lost twin brother today, and I don’t want to give such a connection up that easily.”

I smiled weakly. From dating to siblings. Just great. And she still couldn’t understand that I was incapable of burping.

She suddenly burst out: “God, Hayden - confining yourself with these labels is so majorly offputting. I hate to be direct, but I can read you like an open book. You can learn how to burp. I won’t accept no for an answer. I won’t accept guys who are so afraid of failing that they fail by never trying.” 

I became angrier. I sputtered and tried to say something clever. “Maybe you should focus on your own problems first - like your sister who can’t keep her kitten from running all about, spending all day glued to her phone.” 

I knew that was a bit low and irrelevant, but I just had to have something to say.

“Who are you to bring my little sister into this? You think that females shouldn’t be running online businesses, huh - she has hundreds of thousands of followers! Keep out of my little sister’s business! This is about you and your weakness and your unwillingness to do anything about it.”

We looked at each other and burst into laughter. “I know, I know. I’m always trying to get her to turn off the phone, but she always replies ‘time is money’ or ’fame waits for no one’. It’s honestly way creepy how many followers she has - but I shouldn’t talk. I was just like her when I was her age, and I turned out OK - I only take one type of antidepressant.”

She suddenly changed expressions - fickle girl. She started talking about a campus event, a burp rap battle, she had recently attended: Nate had taken first place, playing the part of Trotsky in an “epic historical rap battle” against a guy playing Stalin. 

What? this was a good university - you think our burped word battles were between Ricky Bobby and Dale Jr? 

“Tonight’s been great, Hayden! I haven’t talked to anyone who see things like me in a long time. You’re one of a kind, you know that - that’s why it’s so important for you to not sell yourself short.”  
“Anyway, I hope the next time we meet, you’ll be able to show off some of your skills.” she said, laughing.

Translated from girl-talk: “Don’t try anything romantic until you can burp in front of me. Get out of my house now.” 

I walked home in the pleasantly chilly fall night - the house was just a stone’s throw off. 

Thoughts swirled around my head like an overdramatic fictional character ruminating over a triviality. 

I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was a loser. I couldn’t burp. I had a really good idea for a business, yet something invisible held me back. Plus, I couldn’t code. 

I would seriously consider jumping off the Golden Gate - but then my share of the inheritance would go to my brothers. I felt pathetic, and I was pathetic. 

I didn’t blame Summer for rejecting me like that. Girls dig guys who can burp like beasts - it was human nature. It was just too bad I was a freak of nature. I guess I’ll settle for some fat chick - the more I thought about the idea, the more warm fuzzy feelings I got. 

I thought about the old proverb that exhorted one to ‘accept what one could not change’ fondly - it was the story of my life.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunday afternoon, a few of the guys were gathered in the lounge playing ping pong and eating pizza washed down with beer. As usual, burps were ringing out left and right… I did not need to tell you this. 

“So, how was Summer? Did she, uh, mind?” asked Chad. “What do you think. You know how girls are, with their standards.” I said, jokingly. 

I then told them about the situation regarding Summer. 

“She implied that I would just be a friend until I somehow became proficient at burping - like that’s going to happen.”

Chad looked thoughtful - or maybe it was just gas. “You know, Hayden - you can learn how to let loose. I don’t personally know anyone who’s gone from your state to being a true adept, but I do hear of guys improving their, erm - talents all the time.” 

“You can say that - I’ve never heard of anyone not being able to improve their skills. Man, what do guys do all day long with each other if not practicing burping?” chimed in Oliver.

Chad agreed. “I’m not saying that natural capacities don’t play any role: lung capacity, height and what not are all important factors - but practice sure counts for a lot.”   
Logan burped loudly. “Was it not Albert Einstein who said that success is 99% inspiration, 1% perspiration?” asked he. “Not quite, Logan. But the sentiment’s correct,” said Chad. 

“I for one don’t think that you can learn anything you set your mind to - that’s what losers tell themselves as a coping strategy,” I added.

Chad let out a ginormous rumbling burp into his fist before answering. 

“Did you hear what I just said? I didn’t say that natural capacities didn’t matter. Nature doesn’t make losers or winners. What separates losers from winners is how effectively a dude uses what nature gives him. The real losers are the ones who never even try for fear of failing,” 

“Chad, you sound like a character in a low budget Netflix sports movie,” I grumbled. 

“Well, life is a lot like a low budget Netflix sports movie.” 

“Maybe Wickham’s right - not everyone can be alpha. Then the concept of alpha wouldn’t exist -“ Nate paused to let out a raunchy belch. “- Woah, that just came out of me. My point is: you don’t need to fret. we’re a friendly bunch of guys - we’re extremely tolerant: except no vegans, crossdressers, Canadians, furries ,…, and communists.” 

Chad laughed and high-fived Nate: we were in a fraternity after all. But then he frowned. “I don’t agree with your first statement Nate: I don’t think that Hayden’s a beta by nature. If he stops constantly focusing on what he can’t do … “ 

He looked thoughtful. “Brothers have a duty toward one another - that includes mutual self-help. We were founded on the premise that we can be more together than as individuals. We’ll train you.”

“You’ll train me - how to burp?” 

Nate was sniggering a bit. Chad and the other guys glared at him. I blushed - despite the gregarious stereotype of fraternity men, I was an introvert by nature and hated being at the centre of attention. 

“Yes, that was what this conversation was heading towards. If you’re still croaking and gurgling at the end of training, then we won’t hold it against you. You’ll still be a cool guy, Hayden - that’s why we rushed you,” said Chad.

“But - I - I don’t think -“ I was interrupted yet again by one of Chad’s classic ear-splitting burps. I paused a bit, to let the gas pass. “But it would - “ Oliver let out a full-throated belch so loud my tinnitus flared up. Again, I tried to say something but was interrupted but a belch. They were doing this on purpose. 

Chad grinned. “OK, it’s settled: you’ll be learning from the masters.”

“When do I start?” I said flatly. “I hope that today is syllabus day.” 

“Right now. And there’s no syllabus day. Your first assignment will be a vocal warmup. Fine-grained control over vocal cords is essential for modulation,” said Chad, and in a flash beamed me some sheet music from his phone.

“Um…, I didn’t know you were into music,” I said in a questioning tone. “How were you able to get sheet music so quickly? And I already sing all the time.”

Chad smiled mysteriously and pointed at his forehead. “I have a lot of hobbies you don’t know about. I’m a multidimensional person, goddamn it. Trust in the process.” 

“OK…” I said, not satisfied. Who could be satisfied with such a response? The music in question was “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, the musical. The room was silent. I cleared my throat and began. 

I bellowed out the final verse, adding a bit of vocal flourish. I felt strangely liberated while singing the “bring … me … down” verse. Then there was silence. The room burst out with peals of applause. I blushed.

But I wasn’t insulted. Wicked was one of my favorite musicals - yes, I watch musicals and sing showtunes. 

“I can’t believe you fell for that! Singing such a gay ass song! On second thought - I wouldn’t have expected anything different from you! I suppose you’ll be ‘letting it go for the first time in forever’ after the intermission!” guffawed Nate. I smiled at him: “huh Nate, that quip relied on your knowledge of Idina Menzel appearing in both Wicked and Frozen. I didn’t think you were the type of person to know anything about Broadway.” He stopped laughing.

Chad smiled. “Woah, that was ace, little bro. The sheer-anguish-tinted-with-hope vibe was there in the room with us, you know? I just love it when you let your inner fag see the light of day: it’s so… authentic.” The guys nodded in assent. Nate glowered. 

“Anyway, Hayden - you just exercised the ___ group of muscles in your neck - next, you’ll be exercising a different set, the ___.” 

First music and now anatomy? He was a true renaissance dudebro. And - did he just call me his ‘little bro’? And ‘inner fag’? Before I could reply, he whipped out his phone and texted me some more sheet music. This time, it was that “I’m on a boat, a motherfucking boat” song. Chad’s apparent taste in music was certainly eclectic.

“Boch - “ said Chad, addressing Oliver. “you’re the bass accompaniment. I’ll provide additional support as needed.” 

I cleared my throat… 

And that’s how I ended up “on a motherfucking boat” while the guys provided the rhythm through beatboxing and deep belching - Oliver was able to create some sick beats through closed mouth burping and some trickery he did with his cheeks. Soon, the other guys joined in, and it was a symphony only a group of fraternity guys could produce.

We finished and the guys burst into cheers and hollers. “Well done,” said Chad in a burped voice. “Fucking A!” belched out Oliver. The guys all looked happy and excited - even Nate. It was a Kodak moment - oh, they’re bankrupt now? Very well - It was a ‘shot on iPhone’ moment, then. 

“I’m not seeing belches just rolling off my tongue despite that extensive oral workout I received just now. Oh yeah, it’s because I do more in the shower.” 

I tried to heave my chest in the usual pathetic manner. Nope, nyet, nein. “Patience, young grasshopper - I’ve always wanted to use that line! your time will come eventually. And never underestimate the power of morale,” laughed Chad. Oliver clapped me on the back and exchanged encouraging words periodically interrupted with gas blasts into his fist.

“Class is dismissed,” declared Chad. “Your homework is to repeatedly sing this collection of scales. Be cognizant of which muscles in your throat are moving while doing so.” That was easy as I already practiced singing in the shower - that was where my virtuoso-class singing chops came from. 

Oliver suddenly bellowed: “Which one of you pansies is getting frogged first?!” Us guys then launched into a degenerate fraternity-specific version of rugby played with an exercise ball.

After that, I was majorly gassy, so I decided to excuse myself from the house. I didn’t burp, but according to the law of mass conservation the wind had to come out somewhere. I went for a walk in the hills near the astronomical observatory, singing the scales Chad gave me and feeling a bit peeved. It’s funny how when someone tells you to do something you liked to do already, doing that something becomes a bit less tolerable.

I was walking past a colossal dish antenna, feeling a lot better, when I got an urgent text from Summer. She and her sister were having trouble getting Crookshanks the kitten to the veterinarian for a checkup. She sent me a clip of the kitten, perched on top of a bookshelf.

Anything kitty related and my mind just turns into mush - so I forget about the awkwardness and started jogging a beeline to the texted address.


	5. Chapter 5

Summer and her sister was sitting in the living room staring pleadingly at the rascal kitten. “Oh Hayden, thank goodness. He’s clever; he somehow knows we’re taking him to the vet. Whenever I try to climb up to get him down, he leaps away like lightning. When I cornered him, he just wouldn’t stop thrashing about. I swear, he has human level intelligence. Since you’re tall, you should have an easier go.”

I walk towards the base of the bookcase. Crookshanks just stares at me with clever, shiny eyes. He definitely had human-like intelligence. The bookshelf was very tall and filled with fragile items: I wondered if I should move the potted plants and photographs away. 

I hold out my arms and to my great surprise he leaps straight into my embrace. He rubs his furry head against my chest, gripping on to me tightly with rather sharp little claws, piercing the maroon club lacrosse pinnie I was wearing. Drat, that one was one of my favorites… but who could dwell on that with a kitten cuddling against you?

“I told you Hayden has magic powers! And you wanted to cancel the appointment!” yelled Eliza. She then had Summer take a photo of me holding the kitten, for Instagram posterity. I gave the biggest, most photogenic smile I could muster…

I tried to set the cat down with some difficulty. He wouldn’t budge. When I tried to set him down, he tried to climb right back up, clutching at me furiously with those sharp little claws.

“I could take him to the vet. How far is it?”  
“Oh, it’s only five minutes away. I’ll drive.”

The veterinary was located in an upscale strip mall. Outside was plastered eye-catching posters of good looking all-American types posing with puppies, kittens, rabbits, and ducklings. 

We sat down in the waiting area while the nurse fastened a paw tag to Crookshanks and took him back. Summer immediately pulled out her phone and started playing chess. I cleared my throat, thinking about what to say, when — a smiling veterinarian, a robust elderly woman, came up, nearly caused me to spill my chai latte, and introduced herself as Dr. Mansour-Cho.

“You’re just the person I was looking for.” she said with a very broad grin, exposing sharp blindingly white teeth. 

“Me? I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m confused.”

“We sell this calendar online: it’s just been such a boon for us. Every month has a picture of a different young man with baby animals: heavens, it’s just divine. Would you consider posing for December? I’m afraid we can’t pay you anything, but you can spend time with a horde of puppies. And you would get your picture on a million calendars, just our first print run.” 

I grinned. “That does sound like a sweet deal… But there are several other guys here. What about the redhead in the green shirt?” 

“I want you,” she said directly. The redhead looked over. I smiled sheepishly at the guy, who gave me a look of pure venom. Looks like the practice just lost a customer.

Well, puppies are puppies. Who could say no to puppies? I looked at Summer; she just grinned, shrugged, and went back to scrolling through Etsy.

The vet led me back through a maze like series of corridors lined with doors. “We’ve just been very busy lately. Most owners choose to get checkups done shortly before they leave for the holidays. It just looks like we may have to postpone our photo shoot if there aren’t any spare rooms.”

Room after room was occupied: a pair of birds in one, a lizard in another, a spaniel in the next.

Fortunately she found a room with modern sky blue decor and large picture windows that let in a lot of sunlight. Portraits of ducklings and puppies graced the walls. At the center was an examination table covered with a checkered cloth.

The vet looked at her smartwatch and frowned. “The puppies are still en route from the farm in Sebastopol; it’ll be another twenty minutes until they arrive. Traffic in the city.” 

I smiled. “It’s not every day I get press ganged into puppy duty. What’s twenty minutes?” I texted Summer that I would be walking back home. She replied with a single “OK” emoji.

I sat down in a cushy rocking chair, mind swirling with worrisome thoughts, about burping, about school, about the project. I closed my eyes for a nap, the radiant sunlight hypnotizing me into a warm, blissful stupor. 

A pair of ice cold hands clasped firmly against my bare shoulders.

I yelled, jolted awake immediately. 

“What are you doing here? Get out!” yelled Bradley Stevenson, face flushed. He was wearing a tight wetsuit that showed off his figure. I was stunned; I gaped for a millisecond, not knowing what to say. In a flash, he turned and yelled out the door: “in here!” 

A blond vet wheeled a pram stretcher into the room. On it was a tiny seal pup, wailing and convulsing, connected to leads, covered in a slick of oil. The little crying and snuffling noises he was making were as heart-wrenching as they were cute.

“He’s entering tachycardia!” yelled the vet. “We must give him the antidote within three minutes! Or else he’s a goner!” 

Another vet burst in, trying to restrain the seal pup on the table. He let out a heart rending cry and thrashed about as the other vet squirted liquid from a syringe. Bradley rushed forward and started stroking the seal’s head and back gently, murmuring “you’re safe; no one’s going to hurt you” etc. 

The thrashing seal convulsed far less violently as Bradley continued comforting it, eventually settling into mild stirring and distressed whimpering. The veterinarian spent some time locating the injection site beneath the oil-matted fur. The seal pup let out a heart rending cry of anguish as the needle pierced his oil matted skin. I turned away. Bradley winced.

The seal stopped convulsing. Bradley’s face fell. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my legs.

The seal moved a paw forward. The vet checked the pulse monitor. “He’s stable. Now let’s get this oil off him.” A collective sigh of relief was heard round the room.

They brought in some dish soap and scrubbed off the grease. Soon after the seal began making contented mewing sounds before he fell into a sound sleep. After the frenzy died down, the blond vet kindly asked me what I was doing here. Bradley had his face averted, grimacing into his fist.

“Dr. Mansour-Cho invited me to partake in a photoshoot. For the calendar? Anyway, I just heard that there were puppies, and here I am. The puppies are still stuck in traffic apparently.”

“Oh that. I figured that was the case. The boss is fond of our pet project - and for good reason. The revenue brought in allows us to support extra staff.” We had a light conversation about the calendar while Bradley just looked grave and pale in the corner, studying the sleeping seal and trying to look like he wasn’t listening.

“Doctor, what’s the story on the seal?” 

“Oh, Bradley here was snorkeling near the Grigorio sea caves when he happened on this little fella crying for his mother on a rock, drenched in oil and in quite a precarious state. One of those freighters leaking oil.” He grimaced in anger. “He rescued the little guy. If Bradley had been just a few minutes slower, this little fella would have succumbed to oil poisoning.” 

“I broke like 70 traffic laws on the way here,” drawled Bradley, trying to mask his pride.

“Well, just a few more than your usual weekend drive, Bradley,” I said, grinning. Bradley rolled his eyes.

Soon, the blond vet prepared the seal for transportation to the monitoring area. As he was about to wheel the seal away, the door burst open and in came Dr. Mansour-Cho and a photographer. She was wheeling a large blue box with ventilation holes. The blond vet explained the situation and she quickly stepped aside to allow them to pass.

She looked at Bradley and shrieked in delight. “Is this gorgeous specimen your friend, Hayden? Come join in our photoshoot, Bradley! The more the merrier!” 

“No. He’s just -“ I didn’t want to say inveterate asshole.

“Just leaving.” Bradley glared at me intensely. I glared right back. 

“How about you both participate in the shoot? I envision ____ … ____.” Dr. Mansour-Cho went off in dreamy tangents.

“Thanks but no thanks.” Bradley grimaced. “Time is money. I have some projects I need to be working on — I really must be going.” 

Bradley really looked determined to go, so Dr. Mansour swung open the door to the blue box and five golden lab puppies immediately bounded out and started frolicking about. 

I could see his face instantly soften. “Uh, I guess I’ll stay… for just a bit.” he said, sounding majorly torn.

“Lovely!” shrieked Dr. Mansour-Cho. “That is just perfect. Just perfect. Now let Julia here pull out your costumes!” she said, motioning to the photographer. Julia was carrying nothing but a small red satchel.

My face fell. “Costumes?”


	6. Chapter 6

Julia rummaged briefly through the satchel and pulled out red and green bow ties. “Here are your costumes!” she giggled.

“This wasn’t a part of the terms and conditions… “ I said weakly. Bradley gave a derisive snort. 

But then the puppies started bounding all over us and in a lovable golden blur we found ourselves quite naturally taking our shirts off and donning the bowties. The furballs gambolled about, jumping on us and trying to lick our faces.

We were sitting on the central table. Bradley turned toward me, two puppies on his shoulder and another snuggled up cozily in his brown hair. I turned away, scratching the ears of the little one who was perched peacefully next to me.

“This is perfect — Say cheese!” Julia yelled. I turned toward the camera and gave the most photogenic smile I could muster. Click. 

She showed us the photo. Our bare backs were facing each other. We were shirtless except for the bow ties. Bradley was smiling a genuine ear to ear smile, showing off rows of impeccable dental hygiene. A puppy was sleeping on Bradley’s head while two were perched on his shoulders, giving the camera playful looks. I was also smiling big with puppies snuggled up peacefully against me. We both looked radiant.

Dr. Mansour-Cho looked at the photo. She placed her hands on her chest and made exaggerated fanning motions around her head. “My, this is just perfect. What a perfect end to the year. They’ll fall all over this… ___ … ___.” 

Bradley and I looked at each other. His features were softened; he looked like he wanted to say something then changed his mind and scowled. 

“Did you know that Adolf Hitler had a weakness for puppies? He was also a vegetarian, ever since he visited a slaughterhouse.” 

“What?” Bradley seemed to be trying to bore holes in my head with his glare.

“Nothing.” I smiled my most shit-eating grin.

Dr. Mansour-Cho beamed. “That fact would make a good addition to our newest product: a daily calendar filled with a daily fun animal fact … 365 in total!” 

I grinned. “Uh, I don’t think that would be a good idea. How about this one:” I pulled out my phone. “Adult seals can dive up to a kilometer beneath the surface and hold their breaths for up to 2 hours by lowering their heart rate.” 

Bradley coughed exaggeratedly. He exchanged his phone number and goodbyes with the doctor and dashed out the door, gently but firmly detaching the puppies clinging onto his legs. He gave me a ‘if you tell anyone about this afternoon, I will make sure your dismembered body parts get spread across three continents’ look. I shrugged. Time to get back to the house. 

I went back to the waiting room; Summer was gone. I guess she found Etsy more interesting than a puppy photo shoot with yours truly.

Come Monday, I slogged through all of my courses: we were gearing up for final exams in most of them. I was very talented at memorizing stuff quickly, spitting it out on a test, and then promptly forgetting it all, so I wasn’t too worried - I’ll just memorize the books again. 

I met Chad at Starbucks and talked about school and the ‘musical lessons’. The topic of the car app came up and I told him that I needed to be able to code to proceed and that I couldn’t code. He then berated me, saying that I should just learn how to. So after he left I hopped on to a coding tutorial site - it had a ton of weird and similar-sounding terms that made me feel queasy, so I turned the screen off after a minute and went to play volleyball.

Late afternoon in the Delta Upsilon house, Chad and I were sitting in the alumni room with the pictures of graduated members and various busts and trophies.   
“Next order of action… hmm, I need to look something up. I didn’t do my homework, oops.” Chad paused for a moment. He furiously scrolled through some article on his phone. After a few quick moments, he had a ‘lightbulb’ moment. 

“Next order of action: you’ll do this new throat exercise I found on the internet. This helps the gas to move up the esophagus. Look at the muscles in my neck - lean closer until you can see.” I leaned forward. He let out a huge belch in my face. The scent of turmeric amaranth farm-raised chicken egg muffin shot up my nose. 

“Hmm.. yes I see,” I said, not entirely convinced. He grinned. “You can’t see the those specific muscles. I was just fucking with you.” 

Story of my life.

“So, you have to move your neck muscles in a way like ___ because - “ He then explained how to do it in more detail. “So basically, it can be summarized as RIGHT TWIST FRONT. It’s because you have to move neck and throat muscles like - “ Chad then smoothly delivered a lecture that would seem to be at home in a medical school. Anyway: RIGHT TWIST FRONT, it wasn’t rocket science - it was medical science.

Nate happened to walk by, holding a banana. “Yeah, isn’t that what the porno actresses practice while learning how to deep-throat?” he said, miming the act with his banana. 

“Nathaniel - you are a veritable fount of knowledge - first Broadway musicals, now a practical and lifelike demonstration of a porn maneuver. Is there anything which you cannot enlighten us upon?” I enquired in a neutral tone.   
“Get stuffed.”   
“Not so fast - gotta buy me dinner first!” I shot back.   
Nate stomped off.

Chad rolled his eyes. “As I was saying, RIGHT TWIST FRONT. Have a go.” I did so. Nothing happened. “This exercise will help you strengthen a core muscle group. But while you need to strengthen this group in order to belch like a pro, just this alone won’t make you proficient.” I did the exercise twenty times more before a gurgle escaped my lips.

“Hey, I didn’t think you’d get that far today!” He clapped me on the back, and another gurgle with more texture came out. I tried the exercise again. RIGHT TWIST FRONT… another weak gurgle. Again, and another. Until it stopped. 

“Behold the beast,” I said. “I was gurgling even before this exercise. I don’t think it’s much better than not burping at all: it’s just showing how weak I am.” 

“Hey - having some degree of control is nothing to sneeze at. If you want to master the winds, control is absolutely key, —- “ he held up a finger and paused to let an absurd amount of gas roar out of his mouth. “But more often the winds have a mind of their own,” he laughed.

Soon, Chad had to leave to plan something with one of our ally sororities; class was dismissed. I was to do 20 reps of this RIGHT TWIST FRONT exercise in addition to the scales before my next session, which was to be with Oliver and a few of the other guys. 

While clenching my throat and gurgling, I decided to stalk Summer Hoffman on the internet. I located her Instagram, Nebo, Twitter, Agora, … , LiveApp, bJournal, and Twitch accounts. Like peeing in the shower, stalking acquaintances on the internet is something everyone either does or lies about, or something like that.

Her internet accounts didn’t reveal any drug charges or sex reassignment surgeries; in fact, they only made her more attractive. Her feeds weren’t filled with political ranting: that made her a sensible person in my eyes.

The sense of what I lost when pushed into to her platonic pile grew more profound. but a spark of hope burned deep inside me… or maybe it was just gas. She had talked about a ‘next time’, yes, but I found it too hard to think of putting my all into practicing and then getting spurned again. 

And, you know how women talked; they’re from Venus, after all and you could never be sure they meant what they said. I found other thoughts, about food, music, video games, and the latest iGadget, easier to think about and pushed aside any thought of Summer.


	7. Chapter 7

I somehow found myself at the school athletic facilities - I’m talking about my life as an American university student, so it’s only strange if I talk about my experiences with actual academics. I was going to take a swim in the Olympic pool. Ever since I was little, I have loved floating, listening to the slosh of the water and the steady beat of my heart, and swimming laps, over and over again until the blissful ache of exercise dulled my thoughts into a warm glow. 

It was a cool night and many students had already left on winter vacation, so I was the only person in the vast pool area. I dove into the water, which was heated, and let my cares dissolve away in the bubbles and muted pastel glow emanating from underwater lights. I swam a few freestyle and butterfly laps, doing a few neck exercises when I could - letting out a weak burp or two here and there. I somehow got the idea of experimenting with burping underwater; I do not recommend this.

When I emerged from the pool, I felt like a million bucks - nay, this is the Bay Area: a million bucks wouldn’t even buy you a popcorn-ceilinged asbestos shack next to a halfway house. I felt like fifteen million bucks. 

Who needed drugs when you had exercise? At that point, I thought we should just get rid of the war of drugs and have all the offenders participate in extensive aerobics sessions. At that point, I thought that world peace was within reach. You could see that I was not my usual self. 

I walked into the locker room singing: I found myself belting out “Seize the Day” from Newsies, the musical film. The acoustics of the room were very nice, with the high vaulted ceiling, tile floor, and metal lockers allowing for concert-hall level effect. My song grew ever more passionate as I stashed my belongings and walked toward the bank of showers. 

“ONE… FOR… ALL, and ALL FOR ONE.“ I belted out the final refrain as the sound of an enormous well-modulated belch filled my ears. It lasted so long that on several occasions during the release I found myself thinking ‘when is this thing going to end’? But end it did, and a familiar voice cut through the room.

“I was so appalled by your singing and taste in music that I started listening while you were still a ways off… it was rather akin to watching a cow ambling in front of a speeding train, so horrible you can’t tear your attention away. Now that you’re done, I can finally release the gas I kept in while having my ears tormented,” drawled a familiar voice.

Appalling? Horrible? Hey! People, not limited to my mother, digged my musical chops.

But I was more angry about the latter point: anyone with enough chutzpah to throw shade at “Newsies” deserved to flattened by a printing press. But whatever the width and height of the cylindrical solid this guy had up his back end, I couldn’t deny he had hella mad skills: a true baron of burpage was he.

“Then you must have defective hearing. Probably from all the belching you do; you should see a doctor.” I retorted, wishing I could have come up with a more clever response. 

This merited only a loud burp in response. If a burp could have a disdainful tone, this burp was a prime exemplar. 

The door of the occupied stall slid open before I could step into mine, and Bradley Stevenson stepped forward. He was dripping wet, toweringly tall while barefoot, and completely naked. He smelled nice like the organic shampoo he used - like pine needles next to an alpine lake.

Even though he was strange and conceited, you couldn’t deny he was blessed in the looks department.

I blushed and covered myself with the towel. The heating system turned on at that point - it must have been one of those fancy Finnish floor convection heaters that was totally silent.

“Is this the new fad in the beta community? Singing homo music? I should not be talking - what betas do or care about is beyond my concern,” he sneered. 

I shrugged. “I just like show tunes. And anyway, you sure take quite an interest in the affairs of this beta, Bradley. What secrets are you hiding?” 

He flushed. “Again, with the train metaphor, you are such a beta train wreck that I can’t help but to take notice.”

I grinned. “Makes perfect sense.” 

“They should create a new class of betas like you - deltas perhaps. Extremely beta betas who sing music from West Side Story and are doomed by genetics to not even be able to let out the weakest burp.” 

“Again I must say you take quite an interest in this beta - sorry, delta male. And it’s Newsies, not West Side Story.” I did not want to comment on the burping jab.

We were staring at each other, his intense blue eyes connected to my grey. He seemed to be trying to vaporize me with his gaze.

“How’s the baby seal doing?” 

An instant change. “Charlie. We named him Charlie. He’s stable actually. We had a few scares with a slow heart rate and low blood pressure at first but with vitamins he’s starting to regain strength. He’s moving to Monterey aquarium next week —“ 

Bradley suddenly started and bellowed: “I’m standing here in a locker room shower, sopping wet, naked, talking to Hayden Wickham about baby seals. I have places to go to, things… and broads to do! Time is money! Toodles.”

I told you he was weird, if you haven’t picked up on that already. He started drying himself off and rubbing some medicinal oil on his toned body. I gathered up my conditioner and body wash and opened the stall door. Since he was standing less than six feet away, he snapped his towel at me, giving me a faceful of organic pine needles and toning oil.

“Nice perfume, Bradley. Do they sell it at Costco?” casually asked I, getting into the shower after this bizarre encounter. Bradley only let an even more derisively-toned and loud belch in reply. I turned on the spigot and was immersed in a burst of warm water and steam.

Soon, after an interminable series of towel noises and oil-rubbing and no shortage of ear-splitting gas blasts, Bradley Stevenson was gone. It was ironic that his metaphor about the cow wandering across a train track applied to him: he was so extremely strange that it was almost impossible not to pay attention to his antics. 

But he was good looking and supposedly intelligent, so he was not universally shunned. He was also rich: he drove an expensive looking Tesla model X. The complete package allowed him to be seen with a different girl every week. 

Let’s fast forward a bit forward past some boring parts; think of this section as an “Eye of the Tiger” montage. Chad, Oliver, and the brothers taught me a few more neck and throat maneuvers (please don’t quote that sentence without context!). But far too often the practice sessions devolved into a group of guys belching in my face. 

At least I was making a bit of progress, being able to let out girl burps sporadically. I still bloated like crazy whenever we had keggers and had to banish myself to the hills to avoid fumigating the house with ass gas. 

On the ride app front, I came up with a catchy name (at least my mother thinks so - she sent me an emoji thumbs up in response to the announcement). I’ve decided to call it Etobi, with an acute on the ‘e’ (get it - A to B?).

Coding and the other unsavory aspects of business development were still scary, so I didn’t make much progress on those fronts. I continued to stalk Summer on the internet while avoiding her.


	8. Chapter 8

Shortly after I had walked out of my last final exam, I encountered Filoli outside in the courtyard. Drat - I was trying to avoid him for the past weeks. “Ah, Mr. Wickham: do tell me how the rideshare app is going. My retirement account can’t wait for your IPO.” 

I nearly spit out my chai latte all over his cashmere sweater. “IPO - That’s looking a bit far, professor. I don’t find it productive to be thinking of a point so far off at this stage.“ I didn’t find it productive to be thinking about this project at all, actually. 

“Ah, you must understand that this is Silicon Valley. An untold number of extremely wealthy foreign investors park their cash here: money is on the table. I had a girl - one of my students - translate the vaguest seed of an idea into a public company within a month. She dropped out before her final exams. Well, as for post-IPO… maybe I should not elaborate on what happened…” 

“Indeed.” I grimaced. That was exactly the fate I was wishing to avoid. I just wanted a nice house, a nice car, a nice wife, and everything to go smoothly - when other kids said they dreamt of going to the moon, I said that I dreamt of spending all day playing golf. 

“But after all, this is America. We don’t execute people for running businesses poorly. We give them fifty billion dollars, as in 2008.“

“Um, sir - but what about my professional reputation?” 

“Have you heard of the phrase ‘fail early, fail often’ — or have you been living under a rock, a rock in flyover country? It’s considered a badge of honor in some circles to have created a failed startup.” 

“I don’t know how to code; they won’t take me seriously.”

“For someone so intelligent, you really are thick as a bag of rocks. I have already said something to this effect: learn. No excuses. I can objectively tell from the quality of our prior conversations and from the outstanding quality of your work that you have been endowed with exceptional faculties, which is why I am being so insistent with you on leaving this silly stubbornness behind. I can’t bear to see your talents going to waste.” 

I started to say something but he walked away before I could start. I slurped the remainder of my latte pensively.

Winter break was coming up and this year, instead of going to Park City or Tahoe, I decided to take on an internship. It was at a local firm, Azimuth Industries. The title was “executive intern”: which meant that I was going to do mundane tasks for the CEO. But it was well-compensated and would add another talking point to my CV. 

I browsed the web for the name of my future boss: Randy Stevenson. Was he related to Bradley? The name was common enough that I didn’t think more of it.

Most of the guys stayed in the house over winter holiday, except for brief excursions to visit family and snowboarding trips etc. I kept up my exercises, making a disappointing amount of progress for the amount of effort I put in. 

I did these throat exercises all the time now. I had once allowed myself to entertain visions of me able to let loose whenever I damned well pleased but these visions grew less frequent as I barely got out weak gurgles and pitiful burps while I lived under the same roof with so much talent.

A few of us guys were gathered in the house’s rec room just shooting the shit. It was spacious, with classic redwood floors and high ceilings - good acoustics, so you should know what the primary activity that went on there was.  
I was leaning against the foosball table, listening to Oliver ramble on in typical guy fashion about some ‘conquest’: Jesi, Kami, something that ended with a ‘i’ or ‘y’. She was described eloquently as a ‘sultry goth exchange student with breasts akin to melons’. 

She was from Vancouver, which apparently was originally named “Gastown” in honor of the British settler Gassy Jack who had earned the respect of the natives with his awesome burps. Oliver found it hella awesome that there was a clock dedicated to the man that belched out steam on the hour.

“So, then she said that she had a kink. Man, I was a bit put out - she had better not be one of those 50 shades of fucked up types! Although the hottest I’ve ever bagged - pardon my French - had confessed something regarding a podiatric persuasion…. But that’s beside the point. Then I kept badgering her about what it was; man I mean, why tell me about having a kink when you’re not going to reveal what the kink is…” 

“Then Kami whispered into my ear: ‘Burp into my vagina, you idiot.’ Man, did that take me by surprise - I had thought she was about to whip out her ball and chain collection. But then I was like: ‘is this safe? We don’t have commie doctors here. Wouldn’t you be at risk for an embolism? A yeast infection at the very least?’ And she said that it was big in Canada and that it was perfectly safe - “ 

He then went into more detail about the fun and games. “Fill me up! Fill me up! Make me whole! Oh, I’m bursting! I’m bursting!“ Oliver shrieked in falsetto. “Man, you had to be there to see it in person!” The room erupted into hearty bursts of laughter and Oliver wrapped up the raunchy tale.

“I keep forgetting: Haywick, you’re in the process of developing your skills in the burpage department. Strut your stuff: we’re in the place for it, after all.” Oliver raised his head and provided a teaser, a deep five-seconder that reverberated beautifully. Grade A timbre and on point vibrato. 

Nate tried to let one out: I could see him trying to swallow air, but in the end he decided to abort and let out the gas silently through his puffed cheeks. Not powerful enough, I suppose.

“Well, I haven’t had much progress lately. I can’t get beyond the girl burp stage despite the numerous workouts I’m doing. It’s pitiful.” I said in a mopey fashion. 

“We won’t judge. Any progress is progress - I think it was Franklin Roosevelt who urged a dude not to compare himself with who someone is tomorrow, but to compare himself with who someone else is today.” said Logan.

“Well, here goes nothing.” I wasn’t at that stage where I can just summon the ‘demon’ at will, so I chugged a can of grapefruit La Croix first. I rallied my focus: I concentrated on the core muscle groups; I visualized the gas rising up my throat… I opened my mouth… and a watery, monotone, weak burp was came out. No rich bass, no vibrato, no tonal variations, no real texture were present. However what it lacked in strength it made up for in length.

The guys burst into applause and cheers. “Man, that was fucking A - an easy 7.5!” Oliver added in a less audible voice : “Of course, that’s a relative term.” 

He then slapped me on the back so hard I lost my breath. That was the moment when a massive three-seconder just came forth unbidden from the lips - of yours truly! I could feel my cords vibrating as the ghost of the grapefruit La Croix rumbled out into the world beyond.

The room burst into a deafening roar: whoops, deafening cheers, applause etc. filled the room. Cries of “fucking A!”, “hella awesome”, and “U.S.A. - U.S.A.!” filled the room. My fist soon grew sore due to all the fist bumps, but I didn’t mind at all: I had let out a burp, an actual burp!

I laughed good-naturedly. “Boys! not so fast. You all might be figments of my imagination in a dream - someone pinch me just to make sure.” Nate pinched me hard - ass. But at least I didn’t wake up - I could actually burp!

Chad joined the party with a huge crescendoing roar that announced his presence in the way that only a belch could do. “Actually there’s no way for Hayden to tell whether all of us are characters in his imagination. Nate’s pinch might just be a part of the dream. In general, we have no way of proving that reality exists outside our skulls,” he said - good topic for to save for your next barroom conversation. 

He turned to me and said in a quieter voice: “I’m sorry I missed your moment - I was planning the december social with the Tri Delt social chair. I do hear that it was truly exquisite burpage - much kudos to you.” 

“Man, what if we were all simulations in a computer? In some weird kinky alien’s mind?” Oliver asked. A group of guys debated the possibilities and determined that it was unlikely. 

Nate addressed me. “That was still weak by my standards. I do better when I wake up in the middle of the night to piss. And I don’t need the carbonation crutch. But Wicks - I have to hand it to you, I didn’t think you’d come this far. Here, I’ll help you along a bit.” He slapped me on the back, and I got winded again. But this time no burp was forthcoming. 

“Thanks for the much-needed help, Nate. It’s the effort that counts.” I said. “By the way, one day I’ll trounce you in any burping contest,” He burst into laughter. “YOU WISH,” he belched out with ease in my face and then walked away.

After this episode, not much was forthcoming. I went back to letting out pitiful girl burps and gurgles. I still farted all the damn time as I was drinking a lot of grapefruit La Croix. The glow from the hours following that episode faded into a passive hopelessness that felt worse than what I had previously experienced.


	9. Chapter 9

The first day of my internship came and I found myself driving an hour to the headquarters of Azimuth Industries, which was located a few miles away in a suburb that boasted of having “climate best by government test.” 

Azimuth was in a modern office building covered in solar panels, surrounded by a sea of similarly sleek and shiny buildings. The company owned the rights to the Kopi virtual runtime and programming language, the number one technology used in financial servers.

The secretary walked me past a chamber filled with cubicles, each filled with a worker typing away at screens filled with so many different colours of text that the room seemed to be filled with glowing gay pride flags. We stopped at a thick glass door and I was then shown in to the boss.

Randall Stevenson was a large man who looked like he had once had a six pack, now supplanted with a beer gut. His feet were propped up on the desk and he was playing a handheld video game when I was shown in. At least he bore no facial resemblance to Bradley. 

“Hello, intern,” he said, not deigning to look up from his game. After a moment, he looked up, nonchalantly tossing the device aside. “I wanted one from _____, my alma mater. I have never went wrong with a _____ grad.” He looked me up and down. “But they seemed to have sent someone from the Fashion and Horticulture Institute.” 

What the hell? I was on the lighter side for my height, but was still well within the average range. I did pay attention to my dress, but I was no more metrosexual than your average coastal California twenty-something. “Sir - I’m a junior at _____ University. I’m Hayden Wickham? You hired me for your winternship.” 

“Ah, yes. I was joshing with you, Wickham.” He took a swig from his red hydro flask and let out a loud burp. “- Now show me what you’re made of: give me twenty-six!” 

I dropped to the floor and prepared to do the push-ups. This was weird but not out of the normal: I had watched two episodes of “The Office” and knew intimately how workplaces operated. 

One - hut - two - hut — I did the push-ups with ease. Mr. Stevenson looked at me pitifully. “I said - give me twenty-six … letters of the alphabet!” Oh, he wanted me to burp in front of him. I felt dumb: that was way less unexpected.

“Um, I can’t, sir — I’m trying to improve in that area - my fraternity brothers are coaching me - but progress is slow coming. I might be able to by the end of my internship.” 

He burst into hearty laughter. “A young good-looking lad such as yourself - not able to do even the alphabet!” He made jokes at my expense longer than standards of politeness dictated, as if politeness should have been expected given my first impression of him. “Why, when I was your age - “

Randall cleared his throat. “Ah, right. Real men like me have business to conduct. There are shareholders of whatsits name… Azimuth, to satisfy.” He took another long swig from his flask. Was he drunk? “Now, let me show you what a TPS report is. You shall become intimately acquainted with it over the next few weeks.” 

He showed me to a spacious office next door with two gigantic monitors and a large, expensive-looking desk. It had a grade A view of the muddy waters of the bay and the far-off hills. 

The TPS report was a fussy series of diagrams and readouts that I had to ____, ____, and ____ with. I then had to ____, ____, and ____. At least I didn’t have to write actual code. I know you already have a low opinion of me on account of my mopeyness and inability to burp, so I won’t bore you with more scintillating accounts of the TPS. 

So I set to work. I learned quickly and was able to jump through the hoops of generating the report. The whole exercise struck me as extremely pointless and depressing, but hey, the salary was great. Randall ducked out back to his office, no doubt to drink more and play on his handheld video game. 

I was getting in the swing of things at least. Push this button, click there, record that, …., push, click, record. It was boring as shit, sure, but it wasn’t intolerable. The pay for the month-long internship being greater than what most people in middle America made in a year certainly made the drudgery less intolerable. I fell into a trance of electronic lights and keys, widgets and wazoos.

While I was puzzling through a portion of the report, Randall Stevenson barged into the room. “Well, sissy - it’s nine, so I’ll be off to the golf course as I am wont to do at this time… My son Bradley will be here to supervise you, to make sure you don’t spend all your time shopping for hipster crap on Etsy.”

Drat - drat - drat. 

The junior Stevenson soon arrived, announcing his arrival as alpha twentysomething guys are “wont to do” — with a profound roar as he barged into the room. He came over and sat on my desk.“Sup, loser. Father told me that you had begged for and received an internship here. I was bored at the house and being a natural lover of comedy, I couldn’t resist swinging by to witness my favorite drama loving fag in full technicolor glory as a wagie!” 

“Bradley - “ I started, but Bradley clapped his hand on his stomach and released a huge belch that seemed like there was a lot of mass behind it. “While you were - “ I started again, but Bradley put his finger up in a ‘wait’ gesture while he tried to get more out - it was a so-called “two parter.” And out the second part did come: it was shorter but deeper than the first. He looked at me cockily and said calmly “go on, wagie,” hiccoughing and biting his lip.

“Bravo, bravo. You put on a better show than I, the humble wage slave intern. By the way, Bradley - I was just going to ask you about the Dec 6 showing of Bend it like Beckham: the Musical. So very nice you dropped in early - the better for coordinating our outfits and transportation. But oh, I must get through this TPS report first; I guess you’ll have to wait in the corner while I crank this out.” 

He flushed. “First thing you gotta know, wagie, is that I’m the boss now. So address me properly or — or I’ll tie you up naked to the flagpole out front. Secondly, oh yeah, I’m going to need you to vacate the premises for a space more suited to your role. I need to charge my wireless earbuds in this room,” he said, eyes gleaming.

So I found myself in a tiny cubelet outside the executive offices. Whenever I shifted a little bit, I was at risk of knocking everything off my flimsy desk. Bradley made a show of plugging in his device in my former office and then retreated into his father’s office, slamming the door. 

I felt utterly ridiculous, like a monkey at a typewriter. The work wasn’t tough at all, but it was extremely tedious and finicky. Before I knew it, it was time to head home. Where had the time gone? It took another hour to drive the 10 miles in rush hour traffic to campus. 

The next day went pretty much the same way. Randall Stevenson was there in the morning but always left at 9 for golf: Bradley would then swagger in and retreat into his father’s office, always slamming the heavy door shut. I could hear him ripping monster belches all day long: it distracted me and wore away at my nerves. I, the highly-paid monkey, relentlessly pounded away at the keyboard at the desk.

After work: an hour’s worth of rush hour traffic and then shooting the shit with the guys. Despite adding in ab training in addition to neck, throat, and vocal exercises (singing show tunes in the shower), the god of the winds still did not deign to bless me with real powers. I grew more unenthusiastic but continued to play along as Oliver, Chad, and the rest of the guys were still very gung-ho about the project.


	10. Chapter 10

On Wednesday, I was looking into an issue about a balance not computing correctly when I heard Bradley yell my name loudly. I hurried into the executive office where he was clutching his middle and clenching his teeth, white as a ghost - sweat dripping down his brown hair. He was sprawled all over his father’s expensive desk, his long legs dangling over the edge. “Bradley?” I asked, more than a bit concerned.

“Wickham — There’s …” he grimaced. “… Something’s stuck inside of me —” He groaned as a spasm rocked him. 

“Are you choking - do you need CPR? Should I call an ambulance?” 

He groaned. “ — think I ate something ... never again —— give them 1 star on Yelp —— “ He yelped in pain. “Wick - rub my stomach: maybe it’ll help me clear out my system.”   
“I don’t think this was in the job description… maybe I could call a secretary.” 

He let out a loud groan of pain. “Do it!” he growled.   
“Don’t make me regret this…” I walked over and gingerly rubbed his toned abdomen. My first touch elicited a moan. His belly was firm and warm. “I probably feel more uncomfortable than you do right now,” said I, moving my fingers up and down awkwardly. 

“No, you’re — everything’s fine —“ He groaned again. 

As I was getting into a rhythm: “Hayden -“ he said loudly.   
“Yeah?” I turned to make eye contact.   
“Thanks a million, Wickham. I’m about to feel a lot better all because of you. This is going to be yuge!” 

Bradley sat up tall, made eye contact, and released a huge one directly into my face. It was a 3D burp: in that it was long as fuck, loud as fuck, and deep as fuck. I averted my face. 

Bradley burst into guffaws. “Oh my fucking Neptune, that was fucking A! It was even louder than I expected! And the look on your face when you came in!” He laughed for longer than standards of politeness dictated. He then made several emasculating jokes at my expense.

“Can I get back to my TPS report now?” I asked coldly.  
“Yes. Wickham,” he looked at me, “I apologize for laughing so much. Anyway, I feel obliged to give you a piece of advice that will serve you for the rest of your life.”   
“Enlighten me.”

“Never eat at a restaurant which serves escargot enchiladas. Now back to work, wagie!”

The next day was much more business-like, passing in a dreamlike blur of colored lights and keys, floats and futures, decimals and digits.

And the next day went similarly. And the next day. And the next. 

Was this what it would be like after graduation? A flurry of days, months, years… a life? Always being bossed around by alpha males like Randall and Bradley? Being forced to care about silly nonsense such as decimal points in TPS reports? 

didn’t think my ancestors lived like this: no, they were fighting in jousts, fucking hot babes, swilling mead, and belching in primal dominance.

Sure, things would get better in the future, but staying with the current management consulting track I was on - I would just become a monkey who did ever more complex monkey tasks. Sure, the pay would increase correspondingly, but I’d still be monkeying away while the true alpha bosses were off raking it in, playing golf. 

I was always shilling for market capitalism in high school - my article on Austrian economics for the school’s Young Republican club won a school-wide prize - but it was only now I realized how for most people, the sordid cycle was empty and soul-sucking - basically selling your life to the system to buy more cheap junk from the system. Really only the owners of capital truly profited. 

That was the moment I became a communist. It was the moment when I finally felt one with the soul of the oppressed proletariat. Ha! Did you actually think that I would become a fucking commie? — I wanted to be an owner of capital, an alpha boss - duh. 

As the work got more tedious, I slowly became determined to own my life. I didn’t want to work on someone else’s terms: I wanted to be my own master and commander.

I knew that getting to self-ownership was hard and carried certain risk of failure… but I realized that doing nothing would just land me here again: an expendable monkey, albeit a well-paid one. But judging how horrible I felt slaving away at Azimuth, security was way overrated. I had hit rock bottom and I was still alive.

As Logan’s version of Abe Lincoln once said: “Give me freedom, or give me death!”

By the way: man, how lucky I am I get my epiphanies from something like filling out TPS reports at a cushy office in the richest part of the richest country in the world — and not from grenades and famine! Hashtag first world problems - hashtag blessed! 

After I got back from the office, I began working harder, much harder, on Etobi - the driver matching app. I downloaded a C++ and Kopi programming environment and worked at understanding how to program. It was confusing, but once I stopped believing that I wasn’t a “coder” I picked things up remarkably quickly. 

It wasn’t hard, not hard at all - it just looked hard. Sometimes I got discouraged with not being able to pick up something quickly, but once I ducked out and exercised for a bit, usually everything became clear. The other aspects of the business - market research, pricing considerations, creating a compelling pitch - came much more naturally to me but still required lots of effort, which was more forthcoming now.

On the eructology side, Chad now stressed the importance of “integration” - putting everything together. So my exercises became more complex, involving several sets of muscle groups. I was able to let out a few comparatively weak ones here and there. Outside a frat house, I would say my skills were decent but in no way exceptional. 

One day we were discussing the mechanism of burps. Chad and Nate were pre-med and talked about burping from an anatomical perspective. Logan was studying literature and talked about allusions and motifs involving belching in the great works. Two of the guys who were biology students discussed the evolutionary basis for humankind’s obsession with burps. Oliver was a physics student and shared some interesting details on partial pressure laws and fluid dynamics. 

“But man, despite knowing the physics of burpage -“ Oliver held up his hand and casually let a seven-seconder roll off his tongue.  
“—— 7 seconds! Man, I just broke my record for today!” The guys congratulated the golden boy on his feat, which he deftly recorded in an app on his smartwatch.  
“Ha ha, yeah, so despite the physics, to me - it’s always just been about swallowing air. Imagine me thinking about Dalton’s law when going down on a babe!” The guys murmured their general assent.

I glanced at my smartwatch. One day… 

“Hayden,” Nate greeted me by burping my name. “I just got overnighted weed brownies from my buddy in Colorado. Whenever I eat one of these suckers, the gas just spews - I mean just overflows - out. It makes my stomach hurt, so I don’t eat them often. You’re just the person who might benefit by having one - it might allow you to put out as a normal guy does.” 

I looked at him suspiciously. He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, Wicks. They’re organic and GMO-free.” 

“What about being laxative-free? Shaving-cream free? This is a fraternity — food pranks come with the habitat.” 

“Haywick, I know the history between us is... “ he burped. “But I’ve seen how hard you’ve chugged away in the past few weeks and started to admire your tenacity…. Even though you still burp like a girl! Sorry. I figured that an, erm - rapprochement - was in order. So here’s a token of friendship, do with it what you will.” The brownie did look delicious with its gigantic chocolate chips.

Nate looked sincere enough. I was touched by his comments - it seemed as though Nate has had it out for me ever since I was in the rush process. But I wasn’t entirely convinced, so I decided to only to eat half. 

I was walking through the hallway toward my room, trying to produce mouth gas but getting only weird yodeling noises, when — I heard a furious gurgle emanate deep within me. Ow! A bolt of pain streaked through my middle. Drat! First thought - I’ll draw and quarter Nate - then I’ll expel him. Second thought - there was no second “thought” —— there was naught but a primal urge: to get to the fucking toilet!

I ran down a different hallway. I nearly face planted as the runner slipped and bunched under me. I furiously turned the doorknob … it sent a shock up my arm with its resistance. Locked! I banged on the door. “I need to get in right now! My insides are being nuked! Fuck, let me in!”   
“It is always better to be peaceful than to be frenzied. It is a truth universally acknowledged that calmness is next to godliness. While you wait perhaps you can partake of some alimentary substance to bring you nearer to godliness: a pastry fortified with THC, perchance? I am not quite done trimming up just yet.”

First: I was too preoccupied with bodily affairs to utter a full prayer for Logan’s immediate demise by divine fire. Second: who gave him a bid?

Possibilities furiously rushed through my mind. There was another bathroom on the 3rd floor: was it more optimal to wait for this dipshit to conclude his self-love or … I found myself streaking upstairs, nearly rearranging my internal organs as I rounded corners at high speed.

Total euphoria was absolutely annihilating that shitter. I swear by Zeus’s good name: it was one of the most profoundly orgasmic and spiritual experiences within the realms of human experience.

I wiped away sweat from my brow. I leaned to one side and proudly confirmed why porcelain was famous for its acoustic qualities. Ah, why did mouth gas hold a special place in the human consciousness but not ass gas? Why was farting considered to be so crass? 

Stephen Hawking claimed that there was an infinite number of parallel universes: in at least one I must be an alpha god.

When I got out of the bathroom - the winds of freedom were still blowing - they should designate me as a natural resource. 

I calmly walked toward Nate’s room. Good, he was there; I wanted to have a little tete-a-tete with the guy. He was on the bed reading “Wuthering Heights” with his long legs propped up against the wall. I walked up to he of the weed brownies, took off my shirt, and deftly slipped it over his head and ___.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Nate spat. “This is attempted murder, Wickham! You’ll be headed to the UN war crime tribunal for employing chemical weapons of mass destruction!” I couldn’t stop laughing. “Ah, you know what they say: what goes around comes around,” I said, grinning widely. He glared and dry-retched.

“By the way Nathaniel, the international war crime court is located in the Netherlands. Maybe you could tag along and enjoy some more … baked goods with me there,” I said laughingly to a Nate who was still stark white and grimacing. “Fuck you, Wickham. I did you a favour and now you come here and pull this trick?”

“Unless you thought that a total intestinal cleanse was healthy for me, favors? I don’t understand that word coming from your mouth. By the way, what did you put into the brownies, huh? I’m curious.” 

Nate was beginning to regain a bit of his usual color. “I didn’t put anything in, dickweed: it must either be the bakery or you. Probably the latter - we all know how delicate your constitution is.”

“Bull. Shit.” I laughed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the other half of the brownie. “Eat it, then.” 

“I’m not eating your ass brownie - I know where it’s been. And besides how do I know you haven’t put anything in it?” 

“I would have, if I wasn’t just slightly occupied with getting dragged through the seven circles of digestive hell. And look, it’s still wrapped. You can smell it if you’d like,” I said, waving the brownie in front of him in a mock tantalizing fashion. 

“I don’t want to get too bloated: going back home to visit the rents soon,” he took the brownie from me when Logan popped his head in the door and greeted us. Nate addressed him. “Hey Logan, want half a brownie edible? It’s from that gourmet place in Telluride, the one with the killer dark chocolate …,“ 

“I’m quite starving, and you know that sustenance is always welcome with me. Plato once said that there was no more delicious thing than food consumed while one is famished. Oh, how lucky are we to live in a world with such a wide variety of nutriments! Even though the pastry is not gluten free and not made with fair-trade cocoa beans, half a brownie will not hurt too much,” he said, snatching away the edible and walking off.

“Oy! that’s totally cheating: I wanted you to eat it.”   
Nate grinned. “Any second now.” 

Soon, deep rumbling noises started emanating from a few doors down. They just came forth, one after the other in very reliable succession. Logan came back, pale-faced and distressed. “—— Gents, do you perchance have any antacids?! My stomach hurts like a m ____ I can’t seem to rein in my ——- belch, excuse me ——— reflex! —- That fucking brownie —— !! …” 

He looked to be in quite a sorry state; the god of the winds had filled him to abundance and then to gross overabundance. Anything he said was often interrupted with a ludicrous outpouring of gas, seemingly violating the laws of physics. I half wondered if the brownie was actually from a wizard joke shop and magically transfiguring the gas into his stomach. Most guys would agree that such a level of release was “trying too hard” and thus a bit gauche, although in some fraternities it would still be within the normal range. 

I smiled empathically. “Release is catharsis, and catharsis brings you closer to godliness. I think it was a medieval princess who once said: let it go - let it go!” Logan glared daggers at me before being interrupted by another irrepressible squall of gassy godliness.


	11. Chapter 11

Despite my previous high-minded musings, I didn’t quit the internship just yet because you know - money. With my newfound programming knowledge, I began to understand more of what was actually going on with those pesky TPS reports…

I was typing and clicking away at one of my daily reports when I noticed a word surrounded by a jumble of numbers, letters, and logograms. “CAYMAN,” it read. Cayman… like the sports car? Like the Caribbean country? - The island country famous for its banks filled with dirty money?

My spidey senses immediately started tingling. What was going on with Azimuth and the Caymans? Kopi was used as a programming language in financial applications: banks in the Caymans probably used Kopi in their servers too…

Bradley swaggered in and distracted me with his interminable gas blasting - I lost my train of thought. When I turned my attention back to the TPS report, I continued with the rote and mundane tasks out of inertia - but not before saving the document in question.

Another hour of driving in traffic on the 101. More practice - I was able to spontaneously do a few! But they were not nearly of the calibre needed for someone to look up and take note. Fell asleep satisfied. Back on 101 again — how I “love” the smell of a fresh TPS report in the morning! 

I pulled out the questionable report again. In addition to “CAYMAN,” there were three what appeared to be hexadecimal numbers scattered about in the sea of e-vomit. I googled some of the specific funky numbers and found out that they corresponded to specific Kopi API calls. One call established a connection to a banking server. Another approved, executed, and recorded a fund transfer. Yet another ____ and ____. 

There was some code buried underneath all this bit vomit. Why was this bit vomit here in the first place? And did it do what I think it did? I had some basic understanding of financial computing systems. Given these specific series of transactions plus the reference to Cayman account, the hidden code must be transferring money processed by an arbitrary banking server into a Cayman account.

My spidey senses started flashing code red. I did more research on ____. If ____, ____, and ____, then the underlying code must be executing billions of times every second! 

I suddenly got a flash of insight. I furiously typed away. Code flew by like on the screen of a hacker in a movie. I told you I learned quickly; this is the point where I would say ‘I never should have doubted myself’ but I’m way too humble for that. 

I flipped through the programmer’s manual, nearly tearing a few pages out. My brain was on fire: I was thinking harder than I had ever thunk before. 

I suddenly experienced that proverbial lightbulb moment: I suddenly understood the true function of the TPS report. 

Every time a bank moved around a financial instrument, code on its servers was executed to make the transfer. By international standard, banks represented funds with floating point numbers with 6 degrees of precision. Kopi sneakily used less precise numbers with only 5 degrees of precision. The Kopi backend was written to round down the amounts received by the bank and send the remainder to some Cayman account - skimming off some fraction of a cent for every single transaction. And there were billions if not trillions of bank transactions done through Kopi code every single day. 

The kicker was that Kopi was paid for with a one-time fee - Azimuth was illegally siphoning money from the banks that used Kopi! I did a few ballpark calculations: X million dollars had been stolen since my first day. 

By completing the TPS report, I had been unknowingly been rewriting the member bank records so that the accountants wouldn’t notice the errors accumulating as well as _____, _____, and _____! 

I suddenly realized how dumb I was — the actual trickery had been masked from me with a basic rotation cipher: I had been blindly manipulating complex symbols without understanding their meaning. 

I didn’t know what I should first do with the revelation. Azimuth was one of the largest companies in the Valley: could I take on this gigantic company alone? I thought about blackmail and then thought it wasn’t a good idea - too squick.

I thought about anonymously going to the securities and exchange commission with my findings but that was squick as well. It’s not like an individual bank really cared about a dollar or two going missing. And my salary…

I decided to first confront Randall about it - maybe it was all a misunderstanding? Maybe there was a bit of lawyerese in the terms and conditions which justified it? I went up to Randall’s door and knocked.

“Sir, I noticed that in the TPS report, ____ … ____ and _____. Is the backend code supposed to do that?” 

“Sorry, Wickham. It’s as if you were speaking a creole of Vietnamese and Urdu. Since you don’t seem easily gotten rid of … I’ll call our VP of engineering to talk about it, so you can get back to that TPS report.” Before the VP left, he said that did not know anything about the code in question and was very surprised - the backend code should use the correct level of precision.

Bradley came swaggering in, a burp announcing his arrival. “Father, what was geekzilla doing in your office just now? And Wickham —” I told him about the TPS report issues. He had a calm face but I could tell he understood exactly what I was referring to and didn’t like me mentioning it one bit. He flushed heavily when I mentioned the gory details of the programming. 

Judging by reaction, it was Bradley who had implemented the whole scheme! He was far too attractive to look like he had ever written as much as a “print hello world” but he had somehow figured a way to change the entire code base and push it out to all the users. After an initial negative reaction, he actually started to look a bit impressed that I was able to figure out his little scheme.

“I’m going to need to discuss this with my son — alone. wait outside, Mr. Wickham,” he looked like he was about to dial 1-800-hire2kill. Drat - drat - drat! I should have kept quiet — maybe even figured out how to siphon some of that dirty money to my own Cayman account! 

After a long while, I was called back in. Randall said flatly: “Although it was well beyond your job description — we had believed you were a business type, unable to understand the technicals — we’ll give you a 10% cut. Think of it as a bonus for helping us uncover a bug.” 

That was wrong! Utterly immoral and wrong! I can’t believe that they would insult me by making such a dirtily low offer. 10% was a pittance - it would barely cover my annual Starbucks budget! 

“Sir, I think that a more reasonable standard of compensation is required…. Make it 50% or the SEC will be here before tee time.” I tried to puff out my chest to seem tougher.

Randall smirked. “Look princess, we don’t have to give you anything. You think a company such as this doesn’t have top-notch lawyers … in addition to insiders at the SEC? Giving you 10% to shut up was merely to save ourselves the trouble of making a few extra phone calls.”

Drat. “35% and we’ll call it a done deal,” I said, tough-guy voice faltering somewhat. 

“I say we dump this bozo without any bonus. I particularly detest haggling types.” said Randall. Bradley wanted to say something but was interrupted. “I haven’t golfed with my best securities lawyer Marty Dershowitz yet this month - you remember Dersh right Bradley? He’s known our family ever since you were getting applesauce on the keyboard of our old Macintosh and… ” Bradley flushed and glared. “Father -“   
Randall continued. “— As an old friend of mine used to say on his TV show — you’re fired! And you won’t be getting your final paycheck!”

Bradley spoke up. “Father, that’s going a bit too far. He’s a fellow _____, remember? And one lawyer is already too many.” He addressed me, looking at me in a rather different light - one with a bit more respect, perhaps? and bid me fuck off with a less obnoxiously toned “Anyway, toodles. Smell you around campus.” 

I found myself outside the slick office building holding my final paycheck and a basket of junk food I had raided from the employee pantry as I left. 

Now, this was rock bottom. Having gone through all that Hollywood hacking and now this? And I was a totally failure of a negotiator. I was such a low class pussy and a shithead. I couldn’t do anything right - so why do anything at all?! Oh, before I forgot, I texted the SEC tip line. 

But hey, despite being humiliated and fired, I’m still alive.


	12. Chapter 12

I was burned out after the TPS affair and didn’t feel like working on my fledgling rideshare business. Oliver tried to teach me the art and science of projecting a burp across the room - using extensive practical demonstration, but I wasn’t paying much attention. 

Yes, I could now let out halfway decent burps on a regular basis. I know that this is supposed to be a major milestone, but I didn’t feel satisfied at all. The burps were still far too watery and lacked something: richness of tone, perhaps? The TPS debacle kept replaying in my mind, and I was distracted from matters gas-related.

The Christmas and New Year’s holidays came up: Chad and I were to take a road trip down to visit our families. We were both from southern California: only twenty minutes apart. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my family again, particularly my brothers Wesley and William, but taking a break from life as usual with a scenic drive was a heavenly prospect. 

Instead of taking the interstate through what might as well be Nebraska with illegal migrant workers, we decided to take the scenic Highway 1 along the coast. On the day of the trip, I piled into Chad’s Jeep with a duffel bag filled with clothes.

“First: we’ll have to make another quick stop. And don’t get your hopes up: we’re not going back to Starbucks,” he said.   
I looked quizzically. “My kid sister Cara: she goes to boarding school nearby. She was going to go to Whistler for a snowboarding competition but it was cancelled last minute due to a norovirus outbreak.” 

I was sitting in the passenger seat when we pulled up to his sister’s fancy school. Cara was an ethereally beautiful girl with very light hair and a slim build. Chad immediately got out and took her bags. I exchanged pleasantries.

“Hayden - I haven’t seen you in like six weeks. You seem like taller, and buffer. Or maybe I’ve just had one too many frappuccinos today. But you look nice in any case.” Hey: I was supposed to be saying these “how you’ve grown” things! 

She smiled sweetly, tapping me on the shoulder in a coquettish manner and then yelled “I always sit shotgun: get out of my seat!” 

I sputtered. “You heard her,” Chad said, grinning. I grumbled as I made my way to the cramped backseat, my legs sticking out at weird angles.

But I quickly forgot all about being cooped up like a battery chicken when we passed Monterey and started getting to the really nice scenery. If there’s one thing you have to do before you die, it’s drive the California coast. When in the midst of schoolwork and the motions of life, I often forget I live near some of the most beautiful places in the world. 

The sky was an unbroken color which contrasted beautifully with the vivid azure shades of the ocean, sparkling diamond glint of the waves, lush green of the hills, and vibrant yellow of the wildflowers waving in the sea breeze.

We stopped at a scenic spot where a waterfall poured directly onto a beach. Waves crashing against granite boulders created ephemeral rainbows. Mist spray diffused the bold colors of the sea and sky into subtler and more complex hues. 

Cara, Chad, and I did a hike, including one to the edge of a cliff pounded by waves. The water was a vivid turquoise color against the dark blue of the open ocean. The sound was deafening.  
Chad smiled mischievously. “Fifty bucks says you can hear a burp over this!” he yelled. Before I could answer, he was gathering air. Indeed the sonorous boom of the belch dominated the roar of the waves.   
Cara pushed Chad jokingly. “Stop it!” she laughed. “You’re my brother!” 

As we were walking through the wood back towards the car, Cara matched my pace.  
“So my brother tells me that the guys are training you how to release. I think that’s so nice of them, but I hear it’s for a girl…”   
“No, I was just tired of guys who feel they can walk all over me because I couldn’t burp. But yeah, one of the major reasons is a girl.” 

“If I were you, I wouldn’t consider a girl who rejected me because of a silly reason such as an inability to burp. That’s so shallow.” She moved closer, threading her arm through mine. “I think you’re perfect just the way you are: I wish there were more guys like you: adorable guys. You’re adorable, Hayden. Other guys are too immature, too show-offy, too gassy… boys not men.” 

I corrected my posture. “I am not adorable,” I said in my best tough guy voice. I swallowed some air and let out an burp. Hey, before you say something: it was audible.

She laughed and flicked her light hair in my face. I coughed as some hair got in my mouth.“Omigod. That’s so adorable: how you say ‘I am not adorable’! They should bake a cake shaped like you like on The Food Network, I would eat it in one sitting!” Yeah, thanks. 

“— I also love that you pursue your own interests because you’re actually interested, not because you want to cultivate some macho or … not macho impression of yourself. You’re authentic. You love broadway and chick flicks, but you don’t act like all annoyingly camp. You’re able to sing: which is a major plus with me, and your vocal range is amazing. You’re also a really good lacrosse player, I’ve seen how absorbed you look gripping that stick —“ 

“Thanks. But most women wouldn’t give me the time of day. Most women would consider me pretty much a eunuch, fit only to be a gay best friend. But I’m not gay, so I’m pretty much useless…” 

“Hey! Never say ‘most women’ again - that’s so stereotyping! Anyway, most girls are shallow and dumb. They’re the useless ones. — you need to understand that if you’re training to become a world-class burper: you should do it for yourself as a challenge, not to please some silly girl.” 

“Hey! Summer is not silly. But I get your point, Cara.”

Chad, whose frame allowed him to move faster, strode back to meet us. “Wicks, why are you holding hands with my sister?” I released my arm with some difficulty from hers. He walked over and narrowed his eyes, looking at me then her and then me again. 

“Tell me you were not just hitting on her.”  
“Chad, your brotherly concern is appreciated but I can speak for myself. I was hitting on him. College men, especially guys like Hayden, are so much superior to high school boys.”   
Chad looked horrified.

We continued south on Highway 1. Chad was giving me the cold shoulder: figuratively literally and literally literally.

He shoulder checked me - as angry guys are “wont to do” - as we were heading back to the car. He adjusted the fabric top of the vehicle so that I would get blasted with even more wind. He was not his usual talkative self except when Cara tried to say something, he would cut in loudly and talk about her schoolwork. 

It was nearing lunch time, so we decided to stop at a hot dog stand in the cliffside town of Gorda. Chad was gruff and not his usual talkative self as we carried the grub to the picnic tables. He had gotten the Executive: the largest dog with all the accoutrements: olives, bacon, chili cheese, jalapenos… while Cara and I got junior puppy dogs. I for one was considerate: I did not want to be blasting out ass gas all the way to Los Angeles. After lunch, Chad tapped me on the shoulder and let out a protracted and very deep belch in my direction. “Excuse me,” he shrugged lightly.

As we headed further south, it was becoming steadily more awkward, so I decided to lighten up the mood. I started singing “One Day More” from Les Mis. 

At first it was just me, and it was very awkward, especially with all the wind coming in, but quickly Cara joined in, picking up an accompaniment. Soon Chad burst into a large grin. “Ah, Hayden, what was I thinking? You’re still … you!” 

I didn’t like how that sounded but hey: he was himself again. he then joined in with his smooth baritone and all three together sung as we headed south, the refreshing sea wind blowing cares away. 

We stopped at a beach on which a massive horde of sea lions was bathing in the sun. Chad waved Cara and me over, grinning and motioning us to watch. He let out a belch while modulating the gas with ululation - it sounded like a sea lion roar. A few sea lions perked up their drowsy heads and barked back in response. He did it again and soon quite a few were barking, a regular dialogue. Cara groaned and giggled and urged him to stop. I gave him a fist bump. A group of young German tourists soon followed Chad’s example and soon the whole beach was as loud as a crowd at a hockey game.

Heading south on larger roads through various uninteresting locales, things mellowed down somewhat. Owing to the legacy of the Executive, Chad was releasing regular gas blasts into his fist, head cocked slightly down - to help the gas come out, as the anatomy expert explained. Cara and I agreed that it was getting too excessive. Suddenly, 19 miles outside of Santa Barbara - he pulled over the Jeep on the side of the freeway with an “oh sh -” and got out.

“Tell me you’re not going to emete!” shouted Cara. “Actually it’s better out than in. He would normally be the first to tell you that it’s a natural defense mechanism against toxins,” I replied. 

He retched, steadied himself against the hood, and let out one of the loudest roars I have heard in my life: it just came out of him, over the din of traffic, and was topped off with a blissful sigh. Cara and I burst into applause - this was a major accomplishment for a mere mortal .. but was Chad a mere mortal? He bowed in an exaggerated fashion and we continued on our merry way. 

It was late when we hit the dense traffic soup of L.A. The sky was vivid yellow and orange and crossed with streaks that would be referred in some circles as ‘chemtrails’. We would be going our separate ways soon: Chad and Cara would first be dropping me off at my parents’ in Manhattan Beach before heading down to their house in Palos Verdes.

Ah, home sweet home, where the heart is.


	13. Chapter 13

I put in the code for the smart lock and opened the front door; no one was there. Today was Wednesday: my mother would be at her book club. My brothers and father were not apparently present. I threw my duffel down on the marble floor of the foyer and walked into the kitchen to get some chow: I was starved. 

I took off my shirt, which was covered in sea salt, and flung it to the side. The best thing available to eat in the fridge was some lox and strudel. I ate quickly and washed everything down with seltzer. I concentrated somewhat, cocked my head, and was able to let out a mezzo-forte burp. 

A burst of laughter boomed across the room. It was Dad.“Well, it looks like Shrimp has finally learned how to burp! Finally you’re pursuing a useful skill, unlike learning trivia or playing clarinet all day long! Or are you an android wearing his skin? It’s just like something that would happen in Silly-Con valley. Ho, in any case, I can barely believe it. Bravo! Well, good job!” he laughed. “By your standards,” he muttered.

“Hello dad. How’s it been these past few months? I see mom got the kitchen remodelled - looks like she got the Italian marble she was talking about at Thanksgiving,” I tried my best to smile.

“Ho ho, you’re just the type of Shrimp to notice such silly things. Yes, your mother had originally changed to the Russian marble for the sake of economy, but then I insisted on the originally agreed upon Como white marble as I thought the lustre was more brilliant and the renovator was having a promotion —- anyway, how goes it with your schoolwork? Still stuffing your brain with musty old facts that only you could care about? Like your dinosaur facts: … I still remember fondly how you’d tell us all about your dinosaur of the month at dinner and how we’d all talk louder and pretend we couldn’t hear you…” 

I blushed. “Mom tried to listen — anyway, I’ve since realized most individual facts are useless. It’s how we put them together that matters, that’s what college is supposed to teach us how to do.” 

“Ah, I remember my days at college: I had not a care in the world. I forget exactly what I studied at university: I was always too hung over to pay attention in class. I do vividly remember the various attractions of the finer sex: feisty Beth with the red canvas satchel, divine Georgie with the overbearing brother, … , … your mother was the last of the series. I met her when I was thrown out of the Sigma date function and she decided to leave with me — … anyway I should thank my lucky stars that your grandfather was very well-connected and I was able to land a job at his firm where I was promoted after just … “ 

The story was interrupted by the arrival of my brothers Wesley and William. They looked like me: sandy hair, grey eyes, dimples… and didn’t look like me: they were taller and alpha. They were Adonis - I was ‘adorable’.

“Boys, how was the afternoon beach trip? I hope that you didn’t encounter too many Mexicans.”

“No, dad, you know that there aren’t any Mexicans in this area: the block watch has been stepping up their enforcement lately. If we had seen one, we would have went somewhere else.”   
“We played volleyball for an hour until Wes made a spike that another guy claimed was illegal so then we decided to use a burping contest to arbitrate. Ha - we trounced that pansy, remember?”   
Will pounded his chest and gave a solid burp in demonstration. 

“Ah, couldn’t expect less from my sons! I remember in university when a similar thing happened to me —” 

Wes and Will turned to face me. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt, Hayden?”   
Will answered. “He wants to show us his wittle six pack he worked so very hard for. He loves showing off. Remember that time when …” 

I waited until Will finished recounting the embarrassing story. “Hey Wes. Will. Just got back and the shirt’s covered in salt; we went through Big Sur on the way down. How is the windy city this time of year? How are the options markets doing? I hear natural gas future prices have been extraordinarily volatile lately.” My brothers were in the financial sector, employed at the same firm.

“They are indeed. And oh look, Shrimp is trying to look smart and grown-up again, just like with his dinosaur facts....”   
“Well, he has been majoring in finance, copying us just like when we were kids.” 

I flushed. “I decided to major in economics - not finance - because I was interested in the subject, not because I was copying you two - I was the president of the Von Mises club in high school while you two decided to major in finance because your favourite movie’s Wall Street. I’m actually interested in the theory … and actually competent quantitatively.”

“Nerd!” they simultaneously yelled and fist-bumped. My father looked on approvingly at my brothers’ sparkling wit. 

“He’s not so much of a nerd now, boys. Hayden has learned how to let out the tiniest of burps… for so long we had always said that it wasn’t possible for him to get out anything beyond the merest gurgle.” It wasn’t tiny.

“Oh, so he got that procedure done? The one where they inject poison dart frog secretions in your throat?”

My ears perked up. “What procedure?” I enquired. In all of my online searching I had not come across such a procedure. 

“This doctor in Beverly Hills just invented a new technique just for weirdos like you who can’t burp; the FDA just approved it. I think natural ability counts for more than anything myself, but for losers this thing seems like the best option.” said Wesley.   
“I think it’s pathetic, don’t you?”  
“Quite - it’s like cheating. Cheaters are losers.” 

The guys then hung around in the kitchen and had a belching contest while my father chattered ceaselessly about some similar contest he had in college between the deafening sounds of their eructations. 

I went upstairs to my room. Everything was as it is. Sports posters lined the walls, and high school lacrosse and running trophies lined the top of the bookshelf. What a contrast with the room I had back at the house. There, I had a lot of sports gear strewn about as well, but also posters of my favorite Broadway productions as well as romance novels and poetry anthologies on the bookshelf. 

I pulled out my computer and searched for this poison dart frog toxin procedure. Dr. Pindar would inject eructare, a poison found in certain species of South American frog, into the _____ muscle group, which would make it easier to move up gas from the esophagus. 

I clicked on a video testimonial. The bland face of Adam, 25 from Irvine graced my screen.   
“Before Dr. Pindar, I was letting out gurgles and squeaks. My stomach would get bloated whenever I had anything carbonated. My girlfriend left me because I was just unable to burp. I tried training, but it was too much of a hassle. But now look at me - you can probably tell that I have mastered the winds, huh? My girlfriend got back together with me, and the guys at the gym have stopped shoving me into lockers. Dr. Pindar has given me a new lease on life —“ 

Thoughts of a boy being pushed down and belched on welled up. Thoughts of being passed over and underestimated… of never being taken seriously… of being ghosted after first dates… of never being manly enough, never being enough, welled up.

The brothers were training me and I had made quite a bit of progress, but my burps were in general still very weak. I could get out audible burps on command, but they were nothing like the huge roars I heard regularly in the house. Sure, sometimes the gas moved more furiously, but the god of the winds was still being fickle with me - way too fickle.

I checked my funds. My last paycheck from Azimuth just about covered the expensive procedure. Ah, the perks of being a corporate slave. 

The next day I took a cab up to Beverly Hills. The driver did something funky with his meter, but I didn’t care: I was too excited at the prospect of finally being able to roar like a beast.


	14. Chapter 14

Dr. Pindar’s office was located in a discreet pink building fronted with palms. I was warmly greeted by the receptionist. 

The procedure went by extremely quickly. Pindar produced a vial and pricked my neck with a thin double pronged needle. The injection was more itchy than painful. They put a spiderman bandaid on the puncture wound. 

I was back on the street after an hour. I decided to take a walk before heading home, maybe I could spot an entertaining OJ style police chase. I worked up some burps - the same old, the same old. Nothing worth noting. Drat. I had spent thousands of dollars on that procedure. He had said that results weren’t 100% guaranteed, and I had signed a waiver saying that I acknowledged that fact. 

I walked through the mean streets of Beverly Hills, taking an idle interest in the various window displays and sports cars, when outside of Pottery Barn, a SHITLOAD of gas escaped through my mouth in a five-seconder! It was guttural. It was ear-piercing. It was well-modulated. 

My throat hurt, but in a good way, like belting out the climax of a powerful song. 

My eyes widened. I did a little… nay, huge victory dance in my head.

An elegant middle-aged woman who was carrying two large shopping bags smiled and averted her eyes. Two car aficionados who were drinking coffee next to their matte G-wagons gave me a “nice one” and thumbs up. 

I concentrated and let out a louder one, spreading my arms wide in an exaggerated gesture as I belted it out. An elderly businessman looked at me and rolled his eyes: “what an obnoxious showoff” said his body language. A stylish red-haired woman giggled and gave me a coquettish look.

In front of a Pottery Barn in Beverly Hills, I felt like I had finally become a real man.

I grinned from ear to ear. Now wait until Wes and Will see this… I cupped my hands in a megaphone shape for the acoustics and let out a mega belch, announcing to the world that I had arrived.

I took another cab back home. I tipped him the last $20 dollar bill I had in my wallet, burping out my “thank you” to the driver, who gave me a “you da man” gesture.

We lived on the street abutting the beach, so I decided to take a little stroll. Some gulls were peacefully milling about when I decided to be a dick and scare them away with a full throated roar. Two girls strolling nearby instantly paid attention. The taller one smiled at me and bit her lip. I winked at her.

I walked back to the house, excited to meet Wes and Will. I didn’t care if they said that the procedure was for ‘losers’: I wanted to burp out some eardrums ... It was time they got a taste of their own medicine!

But no one was there but my mother. I spent some time asking how everything was and was truly glad to hear that she was all right. I love my mother, and I’m proud to admit it. 

“Hayden, your father has gone to the airport to send off your brothers.” 

My face fell. “What? I didn’t know they were leaving today? I thought they had tickets for Tuesday.” 

“Oh, honey. They sprung on a last minute ski trip to Telluride: they made the decision after Wesley received a call from his girlfriend. It’s unfortunate they didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn’t expect you’d be this concerned. I know how it is between you and and your brothers: even though I keep telling them to be nicer to you … “

“It’s OK, mom. I just - never mind.” We had a bit of cake and tea together and then I went upstairs.

The rest of the holiday including Xmas and New Year’s passed rather uneventfully. My father was rather impressed with my newfound skill, at least, but he couldn’t spare much attention for me beyond his various garage projects and jogging trips.

Instead of my usual singing, it was pretty fun amusing myself by letting burps roll off my tongue whenever I damn pleased. When before something utterly mediocre would come out, now the winds moved throw me, creating burps of generally outstanding length, volume, and distinct timbre.

Soon, it was time to head back to campus. I would be taking a flight this time around; Chad and his sister had decided to stay a few extra days. 

When I checked in at the airport, an unintentional but loud burp slipped out as I was handing the employee my ID. I grinned and excused myself as he looked at me sternly: there was a time and place for everything, after all. 

The flight to SFO wasn’t too long, about an hour or so, but that hour was pretty painful. My stomach hurt like a motherfucker all through the flight, and the peanuts and vegetable juice I opted for only made it worse. I was gassy the whole way. Since there were a ton of mothers and sleeping babies (also considering general decorum) on the flight, I let out the gas through closed mouth burps, muffled further with my fist. Drat, it wouldn’t stop coming.

But after the wheels made contact, I felt much better. I couldn’t wait to get back to the house.

The house was filled with guys when I came back. I barged in the door and announced myself with a huge release of gas … from the proper end, of course. It wasn’t as loud as I had anticipated, but it was definitely within the Chad range. 

Oliver was the first to see slash hear me. “Men, Hayden’s back - and he’s evolved into a burping beast, if you haven’t already heard! He’s grown up!” 

All the guys who were in the house, Nate not among them, then came to greet me. They lifted me up onto their shoulders and then paraded me around the neighborhood, hollering boisterously, laughing, and letting out majestic bellowing belches of course. I couldn’t wipe the huge grin off my face.

Soon, the merriment died down and I went back to my usual routines: work came before play. Classes were about to start, and I wanted to make progress - a shit ton more progress - on Etobi. I felt being gifted with the winds had raised my general energy levels, and I could work far more efficiently now. 

Cue another “eye of the tiger” montage. 

I found that app programming was far easier than TPS wrangling. This wasn’t something that only “tech wizards” could do, far from it. Within a day, I had a functioning prototype. There was still some functionality left to be added, but it could wait until after I had met with the investor.

I spent hours on design - this was one of my fortes. Remember the infamous Liza Minnelli poster? I put more effort here than I did into that: and this is saying something. I spent hours agonizing over the placement of buttons and the synchronization of UI elements, among _____, _____, _____, … _____. 

I went outside and pretended to be both a driver and a hailer. I thought so hard about the various considerations that I felt my head getting warm. But I didn’t mind: I was too absorbed: I was in the flow state. Being in the flow, doing something really meaningful to me - really putting my all into something I loved, must be one of the best feelings in the world. 

It was better than letting out a massive beer belch after trying and failing to get something out for a while - maybe not that good, ha! 

In the end, I had a functioning and quite well-designed app, if I may toot my own horn here. Even though I had pulled a few all-nighters here and there, I didn’t mind. My effort directly went back into my project. 

All that I would have to do now is to meet with Filoli’s boss lady. 

But before that, I had another lady I’d like to meet with. I’d been avoiding Summer for the past few weeks on account of the perceived rejection, but now I finally felt up to facing her again. I wondered if I should serenade her outside her window with burps, like in the boombox scene.


	15. Chapter 15

Oliver said that Summer was going to be at a homecoming party at the Sigmas, and that was where I would decide to approach her. 

It was a warm January night. The sky was purplish-black, punctuated only with the fairy lights of airplanes. The party was at the Sigma Chi house, which was a large craftsman-style house covered in white Xmas lights and surrounded by pines. The sounds of music and mirth floated out into the night… as well as a smorgasbord of wet belches: seriously guys? beer pong this early? 

After greeting some friends and acquaintances and showing off my new skills, I decided to wander around the halls in search of Summer. She wasn’t in the public areas, so I decided to check the bedrooms. 

As I checked the rooms, my hands became sweatier and my stomach became more knotted. Was she even here tonight? Would she want to see me? I had been avoiding her on campus and sending her rather succinct replies to her text messages.

I clapped my hand to my stomach to let out some gas: I was feeling quite tense. I knocked on several doors and was only shouted at by two couples. I came to the last room: she must be in this one. I took a big swill of my fruit punch, the plastic cup nearly slipping out my sweaty hand, before I opened the door.

Summer was lying on the bed, wearing a black halter and a wooden cross necklace that accentuated her curves.

“Hi, Summer.”   
She put her phone down and smiled. “Hayden - how are you? I haven’t seen you in ages.”   
“How did your break go?”   
“Pretty good - I stayed on campus. Except for a family trip to Yosemite around New Year’s. How about yours?”   
“Uh… I learned how to burp. Roughly speaking.”   
Her eyes lit up. She looked at me quizzically. “Oh yeah, I heard about that. Roughly speaking?”

I decided to do a demonstration; maybe she could forget exactly where. I let a moderately deep four-seconder roll off my tongue, modulating the gas blast in a way a self-help book said was suave.

She smiled broadly. “Nice one, Hayden! Depth and length were spot-on.” She touched my chest lightly and then quickly pulled her hand back.

“What was it like — learning how? And what did you mean by ‘roughly speaking’?” 

“The brothers helped me tons. They taught me the individual skills: vocal control, muscular strength and control, modulation, projection, …, … then I practiced integrating everything. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of weird throat noises and impromptu singing. But I thought that a medical procedure, the ____, could help me reach my goals faster. ____ … ____” 

“Oh, I heard about that procedure… with the poison dart frog venom…?”  
“That’s the one.”

Summer looked away. 

“What?” I asked. I let out a few demonstrative bassy burps: plan B was to distract her. I clapped my hands to my stomach as a pang ran through me.

“Hayden, what I was unhappy with you about then … was not really your professed inability to burp. It was more of the mindset that was a major buzzkill. I like guys who just go out and do what they want, Freudian complexes be damned.”

I frowned. “So if I go and get the procedure reversed, you’ll be into me?” 

“About that…”   
“I’m in a relationship with someone now.” 

“Since when? … Who? He must be a superior belcher… natural probably. I hope he’s as good at Ticket to Ride or Catan as me,” I choked out.

“You should know him, he’s your fraternity brother: Nate Handel. I was just waiting for him to get back…”

I didn’t feel angry. Nate was handsome, of course. He was talented in a relative sense, but he wasn’t a beast like Oliver and Chad were. But I just couldn’t see the connection: the personalities were just entirely different.

I felt a pang in my stomach. “Nate — are you serious? What do you see in him?” 

She frowned. “I don’t like that tone… He’s sensitive, once you get beneath the man’s man exterior, get beneath all the jokes and farts. Sure, his sense of humor can be a bit … demeaning towards women sometimes, but he has a poet’s soul deep down inside. He has tons of baggage with his mother… maybe I shouldn’t be saying this — but he doesn’t let it hold him back. He takes each day as it comes, and I just find that so ____ … ____ Oh, and he’s very attractive.” 

“All this in a month! … am I not sensitive, funny, attractive? Is my soul not poetic enough for you?” 

“Hayden - no! No. Absolutely not. it’s just that things happen: people meet and… You didn’t honestly think that I would ‘save myself’ for you? You were ignoring me, anyway!” 

“No! I —“ A bolt of lightning ran through my middle; a wave of nausea rose in my throat. I heaved. I retched. I ducked out of the room. I had to get to the bathroom fast - that fucking punch! 

The closest bathroom was not locked but was occupied; a guy was bending over the toilet retching and clutching his middle, so I made a beeline for the sink. A lightning bolt of pain shot through my middle, followed by a thunderous wave of nausea.

That was when I noticed the guy was Nate. 

I flushed deeply and saw red. My stomach pains were minimized now, anger taking its place. He was still retching and had not looked up. I tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up — I got close and let out one of the loudest, gassiest belches I have ever done - period - into his face point blank.

He paused his retching and glared. “What the — Wickham? I heard you had gotten frog semen injected into your throat… but I didn’t actually think it’d work this well! But in any case, I only have this to say: —“ He returned the favor. 

I sniffed. “Nice job, Nathaniel. By your standards. By the way, is that Mexican food I smell?” I clutched my middle as the wave of nausea finally came: the smell had triggered a delayed reaction.

he started speaking before he finished a guttural belch. “—Yup - escargot enchiladas. You should try some sometime.“ 

“Yeah, right. I’ll remember to bring some when I go back in time and poison Hitler.” 

Another wave of nausea washed over me; I retched into the sink. My stomach hurt like a mother; my insides were still on fire… but hey: after that initial burp, things got a little better..

Soon we were engaged in a burp war: trading blows one after another. It was so loud I quite expected spectators to gather, but hey: we were at a frat party.

The pressure on my stomach got lighter: the nausea and knotted sensations seemed to fly away with the gas. Nate evidently felt the same way because he regained his color and stood up straighter.

“Truce. Need to recharge. God, I feel so much better after that.” He rubbed his stomach and let a little bit more gas escape with a groan.  
“— Wickham, I have to admit, you bested me back there. Even though you did get that procedure done… I would say that you won.”

I bowed. “Truce.”   
The feeling of release that had come with the contest replaced any feelings of ill-will I had harbored towards Nate: feelings that were rather churlish (I want you to know and care that I got a perfect score on the verbal section of the SAT) of me to harbor in any case. Summer wasn’t mine. While I had talked about my interest in her in front of Nate, I didn’t fancy myself one of those guys who ‘called dibs’ on a woman. 

There would be others. It was strange: I still found her very attractive: both mentally and physically, but I was very chill about her dating Nate. It was strange how quickly I transitioned to being able to think of her as a platonic friend: maybe I could finally take her up on that go-kart trip she invited me on.

Over the next few days, even though my stomach felt way more knotty than usual, I endlessly obsessed over putting the final touches on Etobi. I called up Filoli to talk about getting ‘plugged in’ to the VC firm. 

Cue the small talk, ‘I always knew you could do it’ etc. “— Mr. Wickham, I knew that you would be able to pull through with the project. I trust that whatever you have come up is top-notch — the date is set. 10 AM on Jan 10 with my old friend Karin at Kramer Perkins … I’ll beam you the address —“

I unintentionally let out a watery burp and clutched my stomach.

“And remember that you will not be with your fraternity brothers here - even though some may wear jeans and tie-dyed shirts, the culture is still corporate and formal. A mature woman like Karin will not be impressed with your strutting.” 

Burp. “— Excuse me. I entirely understand, sir. I had a big breakfast today, and I think it’s coming back to haunt me.” 

“Watch what you eat the day of. Make sure to get a good breakfast, but go easy on the protein for — digestion’s sake. Good luck, Hayden.”   
“Thank you, sir. —“ Burp. “— pardon me. It’s been a wild ride.” 

I would be giving my pitch three days later, on the 10th. Immediately after the conversation, I pulled out my material and went over it for the four millionth time. I made a few minuscule tweaks to the app interface.

But during this editing, I kept unintentionally letting out burps. It was getting a bit too excessive. Logan, who lived next door, began to drop hints that I should quiet down. The burps were generally wet and loud. The wetness was what was socially unacceptable: fine for showing off in a bar but totally out of place in the office, especially a fancy venture capital firm. 

“Hayden, could you chill it with the burps? We get it: you can burp now. You don’t need to remind us every single minute,” Oliver said, looking up from his novel.

Burp. “- I’m sorry. I can’t help it; I’ve just been really gassy lately.” I cupped my hand to my mouth and let some gas rumble into my fist. Mmm, nice and toasty.

Chad looked over and gave me a rather cold look. I think he was disappointed with me for getting that procedure done. And he was obviously annoyed because I had turned into a hot air balloon.  
“Any dietary changes?”

Burp. “— No. Diet hasn’t changed. Although….” A slight pang ran through me and I lightly touched my middle, letting out a series of three burps in close succession.

“… It may have something to do with that - “ urp “ - procedure…” I said, grimacing as a spasm moved through me. I swallowed my third antacid of the day.

“Ya think? Well, whatever the cause, you can’t be meeting with any investor in this state. If they wouldn’t take you seriously because you couldn’t code, they won’t take you seriously if you’re belching like you’re at a concert filled with teenage girls. There’s a time and place for everything,” said Chad.

I buried my face into my elbow and let out a large rumbling of air. 

I seemed to become gassier the closer I got to the presentation. Soon, I was dreading every burp. It was like a drip torture. What was once release was now dread, a dread that usually came with some degree of stomach pain.

Also, I had to keep sucking on mints because the constant stream of gas made my breath smell like a wet dog. The mints caused me to swallow air and just become more gassy.

After reading blog entries on the internet, I soon realized that it was likely that the procedure had caused my woes. But fortunately, there was an antidote for eructare, invented by Dr. Pindar. I went back to his website and clicked on a video. Adam, 25 popped up.  
“… So the procedure worked a bit too well! My girlfriend couldn’t fall asleep due to my constant beastly belching, so she left me again! But after I got the antidote from Dr. Pindar, my life has returned to normal, only now I have no girlfriend and can’t burp … but it was a fun ride, I guess —” 

The kicker was that the antidote cost $XX,000 - way more money than I had on hand and way more than the cost of the initial procedure. 

And my presentation was in 48 hours.


	16. Chapter 16

I didn't think any bank would give me a loan to pay for the antidote. I didn’t want to borrow money from my parents because they were already paying enough for my college tuition and Starbucks costs and my brothers’ constant vacations… also I know my father: he’d just say “tough luck.” 

Chad… he did have a ton of money from his app. Maybe he could loan me some?

“— So there’s an antidote — but it costs a shit ton: $XX,000. Could you loan me the cash? I could pay you back after I meet with the VC and get some seed money.” 

Chad smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, dude. My money’s all tied up in illiquid investments. Although… “  
“… We could have a car wash fundraiser. A sort of belated holiday theme. You could do Rudolf.” 

That’s how I found myself standing in a parking lot along El Camino Real with the guys: practically naked, clad only in multi-colored speedos and various hats. I was Rudolf, with my nose painted red, wearing naught but an ochre speedo and fake antlers. Chad was Santa - complete with fake beard, while the other guys were elves or reindeers. 

It was a 70 degree January day: the sun was burning bright over an unbroken blue sky. I could just close my eyes and stand there forever under the radiant glow.

“Hey fags, Christmas was two weeks ago!” was shouted from a passing car. 

At first, we just stood around looking like dorks. I waved around a big sign for passing cars, pausing periodically to let out gas into my fist. My stomach still wasn’t right, but the warmer weather today made me feel better.

But soon the cars started coming - and come they did - one after the other. Range Rovers, Porsches, Teslas, BMWs, … most of the drivers were women, but there were quite a few men as well. 

I noticed Oliver, dressed as an elf: wearing green speedos and hat, getting really into washing a grey Lexus coupe with two transfixed women inside. He was really giving it his all: digging down into every crack and cranny, ejecting hose water indiscriminately … for someone who drinks so much beer, he had really chiseled muscles. He looked so glowingly healthy and full of vital energy then, under the radiant sunshine, that I just wanted to save this moment in my mind — for when I’m down. What - what are you smirking at?

The weather seemed to get warmer as the afternoon wore on; it almost felt like summer.

Chad and Logan were busy servicing a car. Since Chad was so tall, he easily reach places guys of normal height couldn’t, places on the top of the car. His stretching really showed off his abs of Roman marble. Logan, despite the amount of time he spent reading angsty millennial books, did not seem to neglect his weightlifting. He had toned abs and a swimmer’s frame, like me, and was positively glowing.

I looked around me: guys laughing, horsing around, squirting water all over the place. I kept noticing how hot my face was getting and how the speedo was starting to get a bit tight and how maybe I should sit down and how… a shock of icy cold water.   
“Lazy fucker! We’re doing this for you!” burped Nate in my ear.  
“Oh, it’s on!” I said, ignoring the pain my stomach, and turning the ejection of the hose toward him. We then had a water fight among the cars, chasing after each other with our big, long hoses, ejecting spray all over the place.

It was getting close to 5: the agreed-upon closing time. The sun was far dimmer now, but it was still warm. A turquoise Prius c driven by a man wearing aviators pulled into the fray, maneuvering toward where I was standing. The hood was covered with some red sticky substance.

The window rolled down. The sunglass-wearing figure was none other than Bradley Stevenson, minus his usual smug look. The aviators made me notice just how strong his jawline was.

I grinned broadly. “Nice whip, Bradley. How much did you pay for this pussy magnet — after subtracting the Tesla’s trade-in?” 

“Shut it, Bambi. This is your doing. The feds were way more harsh than father had anticipated. They slapped a $10 million dollar fine on us. Plus, the board is getting really anal about using company funds for personal transportation. So as punishment … “ he motioned around the drab grey interior of the vehicle. “But I’m going to buy something better - better than my old car. Using my own funds, not dad’s. Soon.” 

“So a Ponzi scheme this time around? A refreshing change of tack. And is that blood I see plastered all over your hood? How many children did you flatten today?”

“I - uh, was driving through EPA when these gangbangers threw a water balloon filled with ketchup at me.”

“You - “ the story seemed way too farfetched. “— what were you doing in EPA?”

“There, uh, was traffic leading to the bridge. Google Maps had me take a detour.” 

I narrowed my eyes. “Hmm.. Then what were you doing in the east bay?” 

“What are you - CIA? Customers don’t appreciate being interrogated like this,” he said, handing me $50. I shrugged.

I cleaned off the ketchup from the car and spent much more time than was necessary scrubbing the tight little hatchback, making sure to penetrate every crack with the voluminous ejection of my hose.   
By the end, I could see my reflection in the body panels. Bradley thanked me, which was rather out of character, and with the electric whine he peeled out of the lot. 

I shivered involuntarily. It was starting to get cold as the sun was starting to get blocked by the hills. The stomach pangs returned as the frenzy died down and with them so did the gas. But it wasn’t unbearable. A little of that sunshine had got inside me and hadn’t left.

We had earned a tidy sum, but it was only 75% of the total I needed. But strangely I didn’t mind all that much. I’ll figure something out tomorrow.

That night, I couldn’t sleep very well as not entirely uncomfortable images flashed through my mind. I threw off all my blankets, and when I still couldn’t get to sleep: I got up and began tweaking some presentation materials. No real progress was made on that front, however. I only made myself more riled up.

I fell asleep with my head on the keyboard and woke up with the document I was working on resembling a tourette’s transcription of a Joyce novel. My stomach hurt like after a particularly bad hangover, but somehow worse. I rubbed my belly gingerly and let out a prolonged stream of gas out. Fuck. I moaned in pain. 

The presentation was in a day.   
The presentation was in a day.  
The presentation was in a day.  
And I was still burping like fiend, guts feeling like Chernobyl.


	17. Chapter 17

My first course of action was to panic, walk around in circles, muttering and burping under my breath. But then I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to die. I could always reschedule for next week. 

I ran over to the management wing, looking for Filoli’s office, my head full of worries and my stomach full of gas. I scanned the name list for his and took the elevator up, pressing the button more than I should have. 

The offices were arranged in a confusing maze like structure, designed by another avant-garde architect in love with sniffing his own farts. But by striking out in a random directions and backtracking when I hit a dead end, I located his office in decent time.

No one was there. I knocked on the bamboo door. Oh well, I guess I’ll just — email him? I wasn’t exactly thinking straight; drat, I really needed a caffeine infusion, stat. I turned around and nearly bumped into the professor, who was holding a chai latte. 

“Ah, Mr. Wickham, it’s quite nice to see you. did you have any final questions about tomorrow’s meeting?” 

Burp. “Excuse me, sir. I have to talk to you a bit about … a condition. It’s a long story - “ 

I told him the sordid tale. “— stomach ——can’t stop burping —procedure — reversal — funds — reschedule —“ 

“Unfortunately Karin cannot reschedule. It’s the end of a funding session. After tomorrow, she needs to be off begging more billionaires and pension managers for fresh funds. They would usually have in-house funds, but recently the trend has been toward more high-risk investing styles involving higher utilization and less liquid investments.” 

I walked out of the horribly designed building short 100,000 imaginary shares. I had given Filoli an IOU in exchange for him fronting me the remaining cash. 

It was still morning: I could fly to L.A., get the procedure done, and get back before sundown. I hailed a taxi and while en route to the airport, called to make an appointment… 

It was 1:00. I stood on the streets of L.A., in front of a Pottery Barn near the doctor’s. I let out a particularly rank stream of gas and winced. It was fun while it lasted, before my body turned into a gas chamber. 

Not being able to burp hadn’t been too bad, had it? So what if I was the butt of a few jokes every now and then?

That said, I wasn’t entirely sure if I would go back to the way I was before. Anyway, the might be a chance the effects of the procedure would be permanent, and in that case, I would have bigger problems to worry about. 

The reverse procedure was similarly easy: he pricked me with another needle and before the end of the hour I was back on the street short thousands of dollars. But hey, at least the windbag feeling’s subsided.

Under the spell of the procedure, burps had just flown out smoothly: I didn’t need to rally any attention to start blasting like at a teen concert. But now no gas was forthcoming. I called to mind all the exercises I had done over the last few weeks. I concentrated… and a very mediocre burp came out of my mouth.

Two well-dressed girls walked by without paying attention to me. I started grinning from ear to ear like a madman. 

A very deep nap and several cans of tomato juice later, I was back in the Bay. It was late, around evening time, when I finally got back to the house. I went straight to my room and began making some last minute changes before saying ‘fuck it’ and turning out the lights.

When I awoke, I sang some of my favorite songs to get me pumped up. I hadn’t sung for quite some time, but backstreet was certainly back this morning - and it felt amazing. I was getting pumped, lost in music, when Logan pounded on the wall to get me to shut up.

Out of sheer perversity, I tried to let out some burps. Weak. Weak. Weak. The gassy demon had been exorcised: I breathed a sigh of relief. 

Once I dressed in my suit, instead of feeling stronger, all the nervous feelings came rushing back. I had done so much… I had spent hours on the icon alone. What if they …? Or what if …? What if a meteor struck and vaporized everything? Well - then at least I wouldn’t have to worry about anything Etobi related.

I shrugged. I didn’t think I could do anything now. I gathered my briefcase, straightened my red tie, and was off. 

The venture capital firm was a short drive from campus. It was housed in a discreet collection of buildings next to the freeway. Little would an uninformed observer know: billions of dollars changed hands within those beige walls every day. 

I found a reasonably close space, parked and walked past the firm that provided the initial funding for the company that invented Angry Birds. I shivered in awe as I walked past the venerable institution.

I stood before the office of Cramer Perkins. Here was where my fate would supposedly be decided. The bushes out front swayed ominously. My trembling hand made contact with the stainless steel door handle. It sent a jarring shock up my arm that shook me to the bone. Before pulling open the thick glass door, I double-checked the address. Wrong one. The building was the next one over. Drat, they all looked the same!

I stood before the office of Cramer Perkins. Even though the building was as low and discreet as a medical office, it still looked plenty formidable. Tasteful shrubbery surrounded the entrance walk.

I pressed the buzzer and a receptionist wearing a tasteful suit came to greet me. The building was a lot larger on the inside than one would think looking from outside. Tasteful and generic modern art graced the walls. After a short period of time shuffling through my notes, I was called in…

Karin was a sturdy woman with impeccable posture and a vise-like handshake. She was wearing a t-shirt with a floral motif and blue jeans. Others would be watching through telepresence.

The pitch went great. The first promising sign was her compliment on the name. I explained the concept, gave a technical demonstration, and gave a detailed rundown on the financials. I also _____, _____, and _____. I didn’t stutter or burp at any time, fortunately. 

It went exactly how I rehearsed it. Even my tone of voice was how I had imagined it.

She gave me a thumbs up after checking her computer. “They really see a lot of potential in the idea,” she told me, looking excited. 

A red-haired man entered the room and whispered something into Karin’s ear. They both turned and looked at me. 

“Thank you for taking the time out of your hectic schedule to meet with us, Hayden. I know how busy ____ students are.” 

“But I’m afraid we cannot move forward with Etobi.” 

My insides dropped… plummeted. Into an icy lake. 

Were they playing an elaborate joke on me? This was the firm that gave millions of dollars for a company to make bath bombs! And there was so much potential… I had done so many hours of research… I had even paid facebook to deploy surveys as part of market research! 

My face felt hot. “Any reason why?” I asked, trying to keep as neutral a tone as possible.

“We have already granted funding to a similar project, Taxiapp, which also matches drivers to riders.”

Had someone taken my presentation to heart? I was clenching my fists so hard that my nails were creating crescent moons in my palms.

“But — I came up with this idea a long time ago… I gave a presentation on it in class. Dr. Filoli, who referred me, thought it was brilliant. Someone must have taken inspiration from my presentation!” 

“I don’t think such an idea is specific enough that it could be considered property. But your execution was certainly spot on: you have talent, we’ll give you that. But we only have funds for one transportation app, and we have already granted the funding.”

“May I ask who pitched Taxiapp?”

“A young man just like yourself, also a current student at _____ albeit a year above you. His name is Bradley Stevenson.” 

“I’m sorry, did you say — Never mind.” My face felt cold and clammy while my core felt burning hot.

“We wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours, Mr. Wickham.” 

I walked out of the conference room, feeling like a deflated tube man, insides a pile of icy slush.

I guess I had no one to blame but myself. I hadn’t patented the idea. It’s only natural that someone would steal it from under my nose while I was busy moping around.

It was a fucking ass move of Bradley’s though, but what could I expect from him? I had only myself to blame.

I guess that I should just give up and sell my soul to BCG. Maybe they could pay for my MBA and then I could come back here and reject college kids with inflated senses of self-worth, completing the cycle. It’s not like I would be installing drywall or digging ditches all day long. 

Sure, I had poured out my soul into Etobi. Sure, using my brain at that level had been exhilarating: had been more exciting than an intense lacrosse game. In the flow state of working on an idea I had felt passionate about, I had felt alive.  
But in the entrepreneurship space there would only be more Bradleys, and what was the point of going through all the stress of competition when I could have almost every worldly desire fulfilled with a generic consulting job, with a wonderfully straightforward corporate ladder to climb.

Who needed a Patek Phillipe or a McLaren? Besides - the thought of eating caviar off a high class prostitute’s bikini gave me a squick feeling. 

When I exited to the parking lot, I was even further dismayed to find that it was raining: a gloomy winter drizzle. At this point, I just wanted to get back to the house and watch a dumb show on Netflix and eat kraft dinner washed down with cheap beer.

As I was walking back to the car lost in thought, lo and behold! — I saw Bradley jogging up to me, clad in a smart suit, face flushed, grinning broadly. His blue eyes were shining. He didn’t look like his usual self, so my spidey senses immediately kicked into gear.

“Hayden, fancy meeting you here! How is everything? What are you doing here?” he asked in a cheerful voice. He looked like quite the happy thief. He was toying with me, rubbing everything in my face.

“Evidently impeding progress. By all means, go enjoy what is rightfully yours,” I said in a caustic tone.

“Oh … I was just coming back to get my wireless earbuds case. I left it here this morning when I — I have so much to tell you. Let’s get coffee.” He smiled at me. 

What was this bastard talking about? Me? Was he going to thank me for providing him with “inspiration”?

“Yes, and afterwards let’s go get colonoscopies together. Let’s double the fun.” I motioned to move past.

He furrowed his brow, affecting an expression of concern. “I, uh - I don’t understand, Hayden. You seem wound up... Did your pet cat die or something?” 

“Why am I acting like this? Why do I even have to explain anything to you? We’re — we’re not even friends. And you know that I worked so long and hard on that and you just swoop in ... Just quit your act already!”

“Swoop in? On what?”  
“And not friends? — That may be true. But you can’t deny there’s something between us. I’ve seen the way you look at me. I know you feel the same way I do when, when our eyes meet for but a moment. A moment like now.” 

I violently turned away. “Fuck no. I’m not — not gay,” I forced out through clenched teeth. “I — I can’t help it if you’re delusional — and egotistical enough to interpret my expression of hatred — and disdain as ‘something more’.” 

“This is your way of dealing with repressed feelings. I should know, I — well, it’s raining, we should talk more at coffee?” he smiled hopefully.

“Did you not understand, Bradley? I don’t want anything to do with you. And I don’t appreciate the psychobabble, especially from a psycho like you! A psycho who cheats and plagiarizes. The app come to mind?”  
“Anyway… even — even if I were into guys, you’d be the last one on my mind. You’re despicable.” 

Bradley flushed, eyes widening. “I can explain —“

“You need not say more. I’d rather be a wage slave with principles than a billionaire who only got there because of fraud and daddy’s connections.” 

He turned an even deeper shade of red. I had evidently touched a nerve.“Hayden, I —“ 

I pushed past him and drove off.


	18. Chapter 18

The next few days passed in a blur. Classes had started again, and I threw myself in the work, hoping to distract myself from myself. I went to parties frequently and got even drunker than usual.

My days past like nights and my nights like days. I attended lectures, did homework, and went to parties like a dutiful zombie in a dreamlike trance. At night, I was wide awake with only two types of thoughts in my mind: thoughts of that bastard Bradley and thoughts about how I shouldn’t be thinking about Bradley. The mind war meant that deep sleep was an illusory luxury.

I don’t think that there was enough market for two apps: the niche was a bit small. Bradley was smart and had a lot of connections. He’d see it through. I could seek funding from another firm and wage war against Bradley, but why bother? It was a ton of work, a ton of time I could be spending watching Netflix. 

the idea of a predictable life grew more attractive by the day. Peace is good, right? 

Who needed to start their own company? Any bum can live like a king nowadays, even without a golden corporate ladder to climb. Mediocrity is good, right? Wouldn’t the mediocre inherit the earth?

But still, there was something about the endless grind and leisure that didn’t sit quite right with me. I found myself feeling empty. I didn’t have the same engaging feeling when creating something that was my very own. 

Maybe one day I could come up with a different idea someday. A online pet food delivery service? Nah, I didn’t think that would work. 

But hey, a whiff of my former burping prowess did come back. Us guys were doing creekside cleanup as part of a service project and out of the blue a rather large burp came out of yours truly. Being among a group of testosterone-ridden guys, this obviously served as the Sarajevo moment for an all out burp war. Spoiler: Oliver won. 

After that, I could get out burps on command semi-regularly, with varying but usually decent quality. It was no where near what contestants at the world burping olympics put out… or the guys after beer pong on taco night at the house.   
It was fun, but it soon got boring. Like almost every other part of my life.

I once learned in an evolutionary psychology course that the human mind is wired to focus on what’s missing, on what it lacks, for survival purposes. I hadn’t really applied that factoid to myself until now. 

I’ve been thinking - burping is overrated. Burping isn’t everything. The billions of dollars that flow into the international burping olympics be damned. Those people who care too much about burping, who let burping define their identity, often didn’t have too many other personality traits to be proud of. 

Burping does require skill - a lot of skill at the high end - and some people just get energized by mastering something. But there are so many other skills to master.

When I believed I couldn’t burp, my perceived inability seemed like everything. Everything seemed to revolve around it. Burping is just one skill out of many. and while a good belch will always signify masculinity, masculinity doesn’t necessarily signify inner strength.

Trying to intimidate or dominate others with burping began to seem immature and eye-rollingly ridiculous. There were much better ways of domination - there are 47 other laws of power, after all.

But still - nothing beats letting out a winner after having a buildup of beer gas in your system. 

On the weekends, to distract myself from my thoughts, I would regularly go to the pool. I liked just floating underwater, enjoying the distorted sound and periodically surfacing for air. 

One Saturday I was floating underwater, appreciating the subtle effects of strong sunlight diffused and diffracted by the crystal clear water. I was ruminating over the events of the past few weeks: thinking about Etobi and thinking about TPS reports and thinking about Bradley and what he had wanted to say — a galvanizing shock hit me.

I realized that I was gay. Or at least 80% gay.

I think the term was bisexual? No matter, I’m done playing around with labels, and I don’t want to squabble about percentages. I just cared about what I felt.

All that I could say: Bradley made me feel a way I’ve never felt before. 

His ‘fuck it I’m better than you’ alpha attitude. His serious programming chops. The way he bit his lip. Those rock hard abs I massaged back at Azimuth. The way he belted them out like a beast. Those intense blue eyes… 

Yes, those feelings make so much more sense in hindsight… I felt so dumb at that moment. But hey, we’re most apt to miss what’s right in front of our noses. Cue me talking about the ‘gorilla basketball’ experiment… Yes, I’m still a nerd and proud of it.

But he had blatantly ripped off my idea. I know that it technically wasn’t mine… but Etobi was my baby. I don’t think I could forgive him for that. But the warmth I felt when I thought about him was impossible to ignore. Strange feelings welled up, one that I tried futilely to suppress.

Once my mind got going, there was no stopping it. I surfaced into the bright sunlight, taking a deep breath and filling my lungs with air.

Another realization hit me, making me feel like even more of a dork. 

I couldn’t forgive Bradley - but I could beat him fair and square - in the market. I was just as smart as him; I had unravelled his convoluted scheme. Filoli, one of the top investors in the valley, had faith in me. Who cares if I have never run a business before? I’ll learn as I go.

Just because one firm denied me doesn’t necessarily mean that I was locked out forever. Only losers gave up at the first setback. I would simply visit the firm one door over! 

If necessary, I would go through the whole office park until I got an investor. I had the smarts and most importantly the will. The fire may have wavered, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be rekindled.

“Hayden.” a familiar baritone from behind me. It’s Bradley, looking clean-cut in a white t-shirt, red lifeguard shorts, and flat topsider shoes that drew my eyes toward his long, toned legs. He had dark bags below his eyes that added a touch of softness to a handsome, angular face. Gone were the usual tight t-shirts / vests and tastefully distressed jeans.

“Figured you’d be here. I need to get a lot of stuff off my chest. I need to explain.”

I dove back into the water, diving to bottom. I remained there until I ran out of air and then surfaced with a life-giving gasp. 

He was still there. “Now come on. I know you’re upset about the whole venture capital situation, and I totally understand. Anyway, this is as much for myself as it is for you. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” 

“I don’t think I’m qualified to provide that level of therapy. You should enquire at the hospital from Shutter Island.”

“Old Bradley would have rolled his eyes at that. But I’m not him anymore. And by the way, I’ve been in therapy - meditation therapy.” 

He held up an indistinct rectangular object.

I raised my eyebrows and swam closer to see.


	19. Chapter 19

Despite the conflicting emotions in my belly, I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. “Woah, is that - a Backstreet Boys diary? It even has a teensy silver lock and chain on it!”

Bradley smiled sheepishly, blushing. “Indeed it is. It was mine back when I was 9. I even got it signed.”

“You —” I started to say something but cut myself off. I shouldn’t be criticizing people for their tastes, given my public interest in musicals and opera. 

“Yeah, it represented a part of myself that I’d been suppressing for a long, long time.” 

“It’s nice to see that you’re finally being open about yourself… Anyway, why show me this now? I hope you don’t want to sell it to me; unfortunately I spent all of my spare cash on an autographed NSync diary…” 

He kicked off his shoes and let his long legs dangle into the pool. He flipped the diary open to a bookmarked page. It was an ordered list in the neat handwriting of a child.

“95. A program to read downloadable books and maybe keep track of ___”  
“96. A program to match amateur cab drivers with passengers who need rides”  
“97. A program that allows people to input and maybe save their exercise history and maybe ___” 

So he probably had come up with the idea before I had. That wasn’t the end of the world. The idea wasn’t specific enough to patent. But the whole surreality of the situation kept me listening further raptly.

He pulled out an ancient relic - I think they called them PDAs.  
“Back when iPhones didn’t exist, there was the Palm Pilot. My father gave one to me for my 8th birthday. Even though in hindsight I don’t know whether that was an appropriate decision, I ended up discovering alternate uses for it.”

“— Stop looking at me like that; get your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, I really loved programming — even though dad always said that it was for losers who would be working in a cubicle for their entire miserable lives.”

“Since I was obsessed with computers, I saw the potential of being able to carry a computer with you wherever you went. So whenever I had free time, I would think up these ideas for programs that could run on the Palm.” 

“I kept adding to my list of ideas whenever I had spare time. I spent a few weeks coding up one of them: something little, basically like a chatroom slash social network for Backstreet fans… I sent the app and the code to Palm, as a sort of pitch….” 

“… Bad idea. They sent their lawyers after me. Something like intellectual property infringement and violations of terms of service. Every day, there’d be a different letter in the mail, all threatening. They even made fun of my love of Backstreet and called me homophobic slurs that 10 year old me didn’t even understand. There were black cars parked outside the school gates every day.”

“10 year old me felt so scared - eventually dad agreed to give them a big payout, which was probably their end goal. The experience was so stressful that I just became determined to become normal… I started despising that part of myself who programmed, who owned every Backstreet album, who had “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” watch parties…” 

“So I threw myself into typical guy pursuits: sports, video games, competitive burping… I became good at these things and people started liking me better so that just became the new me, I guess. But that 10 year old boy was still there, and I guess having all that repression just made me who I was… until a few weeks ago.”

“As I grew older, I always felt the need to lash out, the need to constantly affirm some idea of alphaness, to suppress a major part of my psyche.” 

“Huh.” I gave a small smile. “I always knew that you had layers. But how did everything change? How did you get from there to running widescale fraud? And why are you telling me this?” 

“So the reason I had it out for you was because I felt like you embodied that part of me I desperately wanted to erase. You talked about your atypical interests with real enthusiasm. You were always singing or humming. I thought the ‘couldn’t burp’ thing was an act then but I realized it was just you not succumbing to society’s demands.”

“You were authentic. But people still liked you, as a normal guy - not as some sort of token or curiosity… part of me hated you for that…”

“I guess the alpha part of me was afraid that I could go back to how I was, to my authentic self. But seeing how you seemed so strong, just by being yourself…. You were my inspiration, even though part of me cried out against that fact. You inspired me, Hayden, to switch my major from management to computer science. I thought that everyone in Kappa would laugh but they were all cool with it…” 

“… And then last summer my dad had me take an internship in the office. I learned what a TPS report was and discovered that it was uniquely amenable to erm, programmatic modification. I just couldn’t resist and started tinkering around with the code with my up to date programming skills.”

I smiled. “I’m so touched, Bradley. I have never before inspired someone to commit global financial fraud.” 

“Yeah, about that… it was less than a cent per transaction. I wanted to donate that money to no-kill shelters. But then you outed us. But I don’t blame you: I guess I have no one to blame but myself: I could have created a pet app or something instead of mucking about with TPS reports.”

“But in the end it all worked out. The judge agreed that no charges would be filed if I were to attend a ten day zen retreat at Tassajara… and if my father provided him with a certain standard of uh, fiscal inducement.”

“Poor little rich boy; I heard that they don’t have electricity or running water there. Also monk B.O.” 

“Yeah… I was pissed at first. I felt so bored I felt like I was going to go insane and pull a Shining on them. I mean we were just sitting there doing nothing but chanting or listening to our breath. But on the seventh day, I was just stewing in my thoughts as usual when I just — I just blacked out.” 

“I was then floating in space. These waves of color just exploded all around me. These unicorns were galloping on these rainbows that made figure eight and other strange patterns. It was like rainbow road, but a million times more intense and colorful. And there were these fractals; I kept zooming into this 4D spiral pattern and ____ … ____” 

“Are you sure you didn’t have a stroke? Monk slipped you some acid at the very least?” 

He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but was trying to resist the urge. “I’m not sure about that. But the head monk said that he never saw someone with more radiant chakras than me.” 

“Than I,” added I, grinning.

He rolled his eyes. “Anyway - I just felt so blissed out. Everything just felt right. I felt like that part of me that always tried to suppress - resist the more sensitive part of me, the gay part of me —- that resisting part just fell away completely after that trip. I just felt whole, like myself.” 

“When I came back, I stopped spending so much time partying and being a general ass, frittering my time away in dick-measuring bullshit like burping contests. I decided life was too short to deny who I really was. I wanted to be like you. You always seemed so happy, so radiant.”

I laughed. “That’s ironic. I see myself as more of a mopey pessimist. When I was obsessing about how I couldn’t burp, I was dying to be able to. I thought myself less of a person because I gurgled. I think that’s ridiculous now.” 

“Then you must have hidden that part of you very well. And I agree, burping is overrated. For when you drink too much beer too quickly. People care too much about burping; there are less noisy and smelly ways to impress people. And impressing people is overrated anyway.” 

“It sure feels good though.” 

“That it does.” Bradley patted his stomach, letting out a bassy burp.

“Yum. That said, after reevaluating my priorities, I decided to put everything into coding. So I returned to my old list, picked the idea I thought would work, and opened up a text editor and …. I now have $_____ in seed that I don’t know what to do with.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t some of your Kappa brothers business types? Didn’t you brag about taking courses from the graduate school of business?”

“I hated all the management courses I took. I’m more of a programmer type. I enjoy the thrill of the successful compile. I’d fight wars over text editors. IPOs, corporate finance make me feel queasy.” 

“Hey, don’t say that. You can learn corporate finance; you’ll get used to it.” What was I saying?

I finally got out of the pool. It was getting a bit colder as the sun was starting to set. Bradley sprinted over to a chair and brought me a towel. We locked eyes.

“You see, I saw you present something back when you were a freshman. You have major talent. You raised so many considerations that others never would have got and then dealt with them in really elegant ways.   
“And the whole TPS thing, how you were able to figure things out so quickly … I’ve never seen someone with serious technical chops combined with such business acumen.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want to do this together. Create a rideshare empire. You can run the business side, and I’ll direct the technical side.”

I was at a loss for words. 

“But why - why me? — There are loads of way more talented people.” I asked, rather unconvincingly.

We locked eyes, blue against grey. A surge passed over me, and I think Bradley felt it too. I think that said enough. 

“One thing that I realized when I was at the zen center was the major reason I had it out so much for you. It’s because a part of me needs everything to be perfect, and I felt that you were free in every way except one: you would not acknowledge your sexuality. I just didn’t get it. I just needed to fix you, but at the same time another part of me, the resisting part, the part I left behind in the meditation hall, really really didn’t want me to acknowledge an even deeper motivation: that I was in love with you. That I am in love with you.” 

He looked so gorgeous and so strong yet so vulnerable with his Backstreet Boys diary and clean-cut white t-shirt that I was finding it hard not to keep away from him. His eyes were wide and his pupils were dark. I inhaled the delicious aroma of pine needles.

It was like a scene in a high-budget romance movie. I could swear I could hear the sounds of an orchestra playing joyous music. I leaned in and our lips met. It was electrifying.

After a few seconds, we finally separated, still gazing into each other’s eyes. 

“That actually doesn’t sound half bad… Maybe we could talk more over coffee. And let me get out of this speedo first.” I said, shivering. Bradley quickly stepped aside, looking concerned.

I went to the locker room to change while Bradley waited near the pool. 

“I know of this French coffee shop near my house. They have the best choux pastries, and their coffee is something else. I think they put olive oil in it, the fat helps the caffeine get absorbed faster.”


	20. Conclusion

We walked back to his turquoise Prius, holding hands - my cold hand in his warm one.

“I see you didn’t get a new ride. Good on you. Manufacturing pollutes.” 

“This little thing’s really grown on me. Plus I’m not worried about it getting scratched or dinged or dog hairs getting everywhere.”

“I didn’t know you have a dog. How do you keep one in the Kappa house? Won’t the guys force him to chug beer or to wear a dumb costume or something?”

“Dogs. I have three. They live at my dad’s house. I love them too much to subject them to frat house antics.”

“Gotcha.” 

We drove south for a few minutes until we hit Castle Rock, a wealthy town nestled among the foothills. The sun was setting now, and the hills were ablaze with yellow and orange. 

The main street had a quaint yet modern vibe: an Apple store sat harmoniously next to a vintage craft shop. It looked like an western town, only with Porsches and Teslas parked on the street instead of horses and wagons.

The coffee shop was in a modern wooden building with solar panels on its roof. There was a line outside, but the waitress greeted Bradley like he was a regular and allowed him to go ahead.   
We were soon treated to airy chocolate baguettes slathered with decadent cream topping, luscious deviled eggs liberally sprinkled with paprika and cinnamon, hearty buckwheat pancakes topped with fresh blueberries and pats of French goat cheese butter, and steaming mugs of house special coffee ‘turbocharged’ with olive oil.

After stuffing ourselves and spending an inordinate just looking into each other’s eyes with a meditative intensity, we decided to jump into work. I whipped out my computer and showed him what I had already, and he did likewise.

We spent quite some time reviewing what each of us had already.

He was reading through my code and frowning. “You’re a business genius, Hayden, but this code is garbage. I mean, first of all the variables are named things like ‘abc’ … ___ do you even polymorphism … ___” 

I was reading through his prospectus and frowning. “You’re a coding genius, Bradley, but this business plan is garbage. I mean, you can’t keep repurchasing stock like this and taking on debt willy nilly… __ do you even tax-loss harvest … ___” 

We did a fist bump. Perhaps this would work after all. 

After eating until we were contented, we decided to go back to Bradley’s house. It was a short drive from main street, located at the end of a winding and steep private drive.

It was a tasteful mansion done in a modern style, with lots of glass. The view must have been amazing during the day when the mountains were visible: at night, a glowing orange motherboard glittered below us, its edges blurring with fog and distance.

No cars were parked in the driveway. As soon as Bradley keyed in the PIN for the lock, two large labradors came bounding up to us.

Bradley laughed as I got a face full of slobber. “Down, boy!” The dogs then rushed into his arms, intensely glad to see their owner again.

“Where’s your father? He a big dog person too?” I asked a mobbed Bradley.

“Oh yeah, he loves them. But he’s never here anyway. He’s always at his condo downtown with — hey, Caesar, where did you get that tennis ball?” 

We went to the dining area. A bowl of fresh fruit was set out: reddish-yellow apples, long golden bananas, plump grapes. We sat down for a while and continued to refine our plans. We would be announcing our restructured business to the investors soon.

I clapped my hand to my stomach and let out a burp that was a while coming. It was decently bassy and had distinct timbre. Bradley looked over at me with a familiar competitive glint in his eyes. You should know where this was headed by now. 

“I surrender.” I said, grinning and feeling blissed. Those buckwheat pancakes had made me seriously gassy, but it was nothing several gas blasts couldn’t fix. 

We then got into a debate on what the funnest word to say while belching was. 

“I don’t usually say anything while burping, but I think a word with a long vowel sound would resonate the best. Like oboe, bassoon, or uber.” said Bradley, who then gave a demonstration with the last word.

“Look at you with the hifalutin vocabulary. Other guys are limited to plebeian utterances like ‘burp’ or ‘yarp’. Oh hey… didn’t you say you hated the name Etobi…?” 

“Yeah, it sounds like a treatment for indigestion. And anyway, I don’t think Americans will be able to pronounce it properly.” 

“Yeah, and ‘taxiapp’ isn’t a good look. We’re supposed to put the taxi drivers out of business? Anyway, I was thinking that we could just adopt a simple, one-syllable catchy name. Like ‘Uber’.” 

Bradley shrugged. We then mulled it over, testing it on the tongue. It was indeed a fun word to burp, and by our standards, that meant it was a winner. And thus Uber was born.

We spent more time polishing Uber’s business plan. I felt a sense of warmth whenever Bradley’s legs brushed against mine under the table. We eventually ended up kicking off our shoes and intertwining our legs. 

Eventually we went upstairs to Bradley’s room. We had done a ton of work and came up with a new distribution idea together. The glow of having exercised my brain - having solved problems - gave a soft and pleasant edge to everything. Bradley’s room was done in a minimalist style, with a king bed surrounded by airy potted plants.   
“Hey silly, December is in 11 months,” I added warmly. Two radiant faces, surrounded by golden lab puppies, beamed out from a glossy calendar.

“Really?” Bradley grinned right back, a dazzling smile. “Because this afternoon felt like Christmas all over again.” We drew each other into an embrace, now just as shirtless just like the guys in the picture, and our lips met.

I woke up feeling absolutely glowing. I haven’t slept so soundly in a long time. 

Bradley’s strong arms were wrapped around me, and airy silk sheets were draped loosely over us. I watched the sun stream in through the panoramic window with a Buddha-like calm. I didn’t want to wake up Bradley, who was still breathing calmly and softly, still in dreamworld. I didn’t want to stop being the little spoon because he felt so good.

So I just lay there and tried to meditate on my desires. But at that moment I couldn’t find anything to wish for.

Bradley stirred, took a deep breath, and stretched out his arms. The delectable aroma of pine needles caressed my nose and made my heart jump an octave. 

We turned and just lay in bed gazing into each other’s eyes for what seemed like forever, meditating on each other. All my worries about the future, about business, about measuring up - they just fell away. 

Our reverie was broken by a lengthy drawn-out burp right in my face. Bradley’s eyes widened and he winced. “Hayden, excuse me. That wasn’t intentional. I’m usually really gassy right when I wake up…” 

I smirked. “No, by all means let it all out. Don’t inhibit yourself. It was time to get up anyway. There’s so much work to do today.”

The reaction to the partnering of Bradley and me surprisingly didn’t make many waves. I told Chad all about Bradley’s transformation, with the latter’s permission of course, and soon Delta Upsilon and Kappa Alpha started to mend relations.

We went back to Cramer Perkins and updated them on the new business plan and the new management structure. They gave us the green light. Karin actually was able to obtain more funding after her latest trip, so in the end we doubled our funding.

We started neglecting our courses to spend all our time refining the app. I barely had time to study for exams anymore and started getting much poorer grades than I had seen before. This made me intensely worried as I was used to being an A student. But my ruminations ceased when lost in the work with Bradley. This was way better than school and homework.

Summer joined us as our director of personnel, and eventually we had a coterie of employees. We rented our own office space, a floor in a complex near Azimuth. 

Our business grew very, very slowly at first. I entertained thoughts of doom and bankruptcy, but Bradley firmly insisted that we would prevail.

I realized that it was useless to be so worried without actually doing something to address it. And besides the worry just fell away when I was lost in the flow of business strategy planning.

Eventually the business started growing faster and faster until one day we reached critical mass and the growth curve shot straight up. That night with Bradley was one to go down in the history books.

Uber soon placed large enough demands on us that we decided to put our studies on hold for the next semester. We wouldn’t be dropping out exactly; we could come back and finish our degrees at any time. But who needed courses on the stuff when we were learning by doing everything ourselves? 

So I treated the graduation party that was coming up as a sort of ‘goodbye’ party. The event was a sober affair, nothing like a typical fraternity get-together.

Chad was a graduating senior. He had gotten into his dream medical school, intending to become a cardiology lecturer. Nate and Summer were still madly in love and had only eyes for each other, feeding each other avocado French toast and bubbly sloppily. 

By the way: her sister’s cat Crookshanks kept climbing up the same tree and had to be saved so many times that Logan, Bradley, and I got permission from the school to commission a treehouse for the little bastard and spent a fun morning together assembling it.

Shortly after reaching critical mass, we went public with Uber. The share price declined sharply after the IPO, but it soon rebounded and it’s been on the up ever since. Filoli’s wealth doubled and he invited us out to dinner: he had wanted to try this new place that served escargot enchiladas, but Bradley and I convinced him to get tex-mex sushi instead. 

I had also gifted the brotherhood with a liberal quantity of shares due to their participation in the fundraising car wash. The value of these shares skyrocketed. I sat down with Oliver, who was our philanthropy chair, and discussed how to use the money. We would fund an after-school program for local students that would teach them programming, economics, martial arts, self-actualization, etc. 

Bradley also sold a large number of shares and donated a ton of money to no-kill shelters throughout the Bay Area as well as the harbor seal foundation. He also started programming an app that would match owners with adoptable dogs, using the sale proceeds to fund the side project since no VC firms would touch it on account of unprofitability.

Our business kept growing, and we kept facing new and ever more difficult challenges. Sometimes we failed in a certain market and our stock plummeted precipitously. Sometimes these challenges were almost too tough to handle, but once I calmed myself down with meditation or by singing a power ballad, we were able to forge forward.

In our Xth year of consecutive growth, a respiratory ailment spread across the globe and caused major economies to grind to a halt. Our share price fell like a rock in Jupiter’s atmosphere. We went bankrupt. I got a job at 7-11 as a cashier behind a plastic screen. The End.

Nah, had you there didn’t I? Anyway, I admittedly was afraid and was already drawing up chapter 11 scenarios when Bradley took me on a getaway to his cabin at Tahoe. After many radiant days of hiking around the lake and many blissful chilly nights with us two cozy by the fireplace, Bradley told me that he was borrowing money from his father to repurchase stock. 

This turned out to be a smart maneuver as the pandemic ceased and our share price skyrocketed back up to baseline and then rose steadily beyond that. One day we woke up and saw that we were billionaires. We then had tzatziki and waffles for breakfast, after which we did a burpy morning hike near the lake before sitting down for meetings and planning. 

The twins started calling me for money to fund their vacations, and my father started calling to request money for golf club fees. At first, the child in me decided to try to release the loudest burp I could get out as a salutation whenever they called. But I didn’t cut them off entirely. Family was family, even though they’re shitty people. 

As for me, life had its ups and downs. Alphaness and an inability to compromise was still a part of Bradley’s personality, and we sometimes got into major blowout arguments and wouldn’t speak for days until business forced us to back together… usually with mind-blowing sex after work. Business sometimes got dicey; lawsuits, competitors, and government regulations besieged us. But that was just part of the fun. Life was good.


End file.
